Todays guest post comes courtesy of our good friends at Adometry out of Seattle.
- Name: Colin Robinson
- Position: Director of Sales, West, at Adometry
- What Adometry Does: Adometry is a digital analytics company that provides ad verification & attribution services. Our goal is to improve the effects of online advertising through actionable insights & metrics.
What is the most difficult piece of your digital media operation to explain to a potential client? How do you overcome this obstacle?
I'd say the value of scientific attribution and the need for a more accurate solution (vs. last click) has become generally accepted in our industry. (But I'll emphasize 'generally'. It depends on who we're speaking with.) It's the description of our methodology that seems to be the first obstacle. Many feel an algorithmic approach to anything screams 'black box'. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible in describing our methodology and how we calculate fractional conversion credit.
How and when do you utilize first or third party data sources to pitch business? To enhance campaign performance?
Adometry leverages 3rd party data (from demographic data providers) to help advertisers & agencies understand WHO they're reaching (in real-time) and HOW those audiences are converting. With so much media buying taking place at the audience level it's become imperative that marketers confirm they're reaching the intended audience and understand how that audience is engaging with their brands.
What success metrics do the majority of your clients use to determine success /failure of a campaign?
A majority of the marketers we speak with still live and die by the last click/view methodology. They know it's inaccurate but it's engrained in their DNA. Until only recently there hasn't been sophisticated alternatives.
Do you prefer to work with clients directly or use an agency as an intermediary? Why? Pros / cons of each?
Adometry works with both advertisers & agencies, we have no preference. My role is focused on agencies but we have sales reps calling directly into the brands. We believe it's important to work with both sides to communicate our value.
What's the biggest problem with the media industry today? How is your company addressing it?
The biggest problem is still the reliance on last click/view. Even though many believe it's inaccurate it can be difficult to adopt new technologies. We take an educational approach, explaining the state of the industry, how it's become critical to use a more-advanced solution and the added benefit to using an attribution platform.
Name the most popular trend that the industry / your clients are asking you about specific to your business model.
I think cross-channel attribution, in particular, is very popular these days. Trying to understand the effects that display has on search, for example, and assigning credit to the appropriate channel has become important for any marketer to understand.
How many of your friends and family members actually understand what you do?
Probably 1 in 10. Certainly not my parents. :)
Where do you see digital media going in the next year? 5 years? 10 years?
As it relates to attribution, I think just in the next year or two there will be a big focus on merging offline data with online data. We're able to do that currently to a certain extent, but to actually attribute conversions on a person by person basis using offline & online is really the holy grail.
