According to eMarketer, marketers are still catching up to the future of media, with a large gap between when marketers spend money and audiences spend time.
Digital media channels, like streaming audio, podcasts, and CTV, have gradually been gaining ground against their traditional counterparts, and as of last year, they’ve reached a tipping point: of North American TV viewers, 94.8% use subscription-based video channels and 87.7% use traditional.
Digital audio is seeing similar gains. The average internet user in North America spends 8 hours and 6 minutes streaming music plus an additional 2 hours and 51 minutes with podcasts weekly.
The bottom line is, digital media is fully the norm. CTV and digital audio are both accessible programmatically to more marketers than ever before. Still, adoption and spend remains uneven. So why the hesitation?
It’s time to talk about the measurement problem.
Media Metrics vs. Outcome Measurement
Despite the programmatic audience targeting available broadly in both CTV and digital audio, most marketers still see a measurement gap. Incredible reach and high quality audiences only matter if you can prove that reaching them with your ads makes a difference at the bottom line.
At the end of the day, marketers aren’t confident in their metrics. According to eMarketer, confidence scores on measurement veracity was between 2 and 2.5 on a 4-point scale among marketers, with attention metrics (View Time, Engagement, etc.) scoring between 1.7 and 1.9.
Marketers aren’t wrong to be skeptical of marketing metrics, especially in programmatic channels as new as CTV and digital audio. Media engagement metrics can easily be tainted by lack of attention (when an ad viewer makes a snack during a commercial break, for example) and do little to prove bottom-line impact anyway. Moreover, proving the numbers that matter most to the business (ROAS, Sales Lift) easily becomes more of a guessing game than a facts-based report.
Digital channels like CTV and digital audio offer immense potential and indeed drive serious results. The problem is purely one of measurement. After all, if you start a campaign with multiple channels, not knowing which one works, how are you supposed to optimize? How do you know which channel is actually the point of conversion? What does your funnel actually look like?
Marketers should expect more from their digital channels. That’s why we offer measurement for the metrics that matter on CTV and audio. Online conversions, in-store sales, and foot traffic.
How GroundTruth solves the CTV and audio measurement problem
Even though they’re both digital channels, CTV and digital audio have been treated as little different than their traditional counterparts in linear TV and radio. Sure, they offer slightly greater visibility into impressions, but impact? It’s been difficult to prove.
With GroundTruth, you can attribute both online conversions and in-store foot traffic directly back to your CTV ads and digital audio ads on a 1-to-1 deterministic basis. No guesswork, no third-party solutions to try and cobble together reports. By mapping CTV and audio ad views back to Mobile devices and tracking that device’s movement in the real world, we can show you your CTV or digital audio ad inspires someone to take action and visit your store. This device mapping also allows you to see when an ad on CTV or digital audio drives an online sale, linking the last touch to the conversion.
Simple, powerful, measurable. How your media channels should be.
Measurement Matters. Get Started Today.
Until you have a complete picture of your campaign performance, you won’t be able to drive the most efficient outcome and more importantly, prove it. Everyone is looking to marketing to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your ad budget. With GroundTruth, you’ll be able to confidently say that every dollar counts.
And we don’t just bring attribution to CTV and Digital Audio. We can attribute online conversions and foot traffic back to ads on mobile, desktop, even outdoor digital out-of-home displays.
Give it a try for yourself. Create your GroundTruth Ads Manager account today, and start exploring our platform (no minimum spend required). And, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.
