Understanding the True Value of Ad Spends to Maximize Ad Efficiency
Efficient use of ad budgets is a key determinant of marketing success for any app marketer. Yet, many grapple with understanding attributions and unique reach effectively. According to industry average, more than 50% of digital ad budgets are wasted due to a limited view of channel efficiency and ineffective targeting strategies. This alarming statistic underscores the critical need for advertisers to focus on the optimal number of media channels, reduce overlap, and maximize Return on investment (ROI).
To tackle these advertising hurdles, we first need to understand a big problem –
publisher overlap. Let’s look closer at how this overlap affects our ad spends and
visibility.
The Trickle Down Effect – Publisher Overlap in Multiple Channels Undermines the User Acquisition Process
Advertisers, especially the ones starting out, often strategize their marketing spends under the impression that more channels equate to more reach. However, a lack of granular insight into the complete acquisition funnel & publisher attribution process reduces the brand’s potential for exposure and acquisition of new users.
Publisher overlap can appear at multiple levels for advertisers across verticals and
budgets. Working with multiple partners or investing in multiple channels to scale app growth is a reality of the AdTech ecosystem. Without deep diving into attribution metrics, this can inadvertently lead to redundancy and ad wastage. For instance, if a channel is performing well, an advertiser might be tempted to continue increasing spends on the channel, often unaware of its true potential and the incremental impact.
Misallocation of funds to channels is one of the trickle down problems of publisher
overlaps. The overlap affects your marketing dollars in more ways than one. For
starters, you start noting an anomaly – as impressions increase, so does the eCPA;
however, the ROAS don’t seem to keep up. Duplication of impressions, over time, diminishes the scope of your lead acquisition cost. A unidimensional view of the data focusing on only vanity metrics of acquisition KPIs, prevents advertisers from taking informed decisions on budget optimization.
It’s not just the marketing dollars that’s affected by publisher overlaps, but also your
brand’s image and user experience. Different publishers serving overlapping ads can reduce the impact of ad placements, causing banner blindness. It leads to the brand being perceived as intrusive, overwhelming the user’s ad experience and also the brand’s overall impression.
Attribution Journey Analysis to Eliminate Publisher Overlap for Ad Efficiency
Streamlining media optimization and enhancing efficiency calls for a strategic
approach that mitigates publisher overlap. A fundamental starting point for crafting
a successful media optimization strategy is to understand attribution journey. By
doing so, it becomes possible to identify unusual attribution trends at the publisher
level, thereby solving a persistent marketing puzzle on gaining insights into where
wasted ad spend has gone. This also helps to consolidate a bouquet of quality supply channels and optimize for ROI.
Data-driven intelligence can help advertisers to effectively optimize for efficiency, and gain transparency into campaigns from impression to click to conversion. Advertisers can also get insights into audience quality at a publisher level to delve deeper into their campaigns, audiences, and the effectiveness of various publishers. These insights provide valuable recommendations to create a high lifetime value (LTV) install base.
In a data-led advertising ecosystem, beyond the right target audience is the question of sustainable, incremental user scale. While the right audience cohort is one piece of the puzzle, the other part is channel & media optimization to arrive at the true value of each channel, to maximize the overall marketing ROI. Right analysis and intelligence helps advertisers eliminate the publisher redundancies enabling them to control the consistency of targeting & the user’s ad experience and maximize ROAS.
The Need for Identification of True Channel Value in the Current Economic Climate
Collaborating with the right ad partner who can offer in depth campaign intelligence, encompassing both audience and channel data, empowers advertisers with more than just the analysis of publisher overlaps. Attribution and unique reach are indispensable KPIs for app marketers to track, particularly in the current economic climate when ad budgets are increasingly scrutinized and marketers want more value out of their spends.
Understanding the optimal combination of publishers drives the most valuable
conversions. Addressing publisher overlaps, enhancing supply channel optimization, and identifying the true conversion value of each channel can lead advertisers to achieve cost savings, scale campaign performance, and make strategic decisions to navigate the complexities of the present financial trends.
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About the author: Vipul Kedia, Chief Data & Platforms Officer, Head MAAS India