Click through for seven reasons why marketers must pay attention to Big Data to
measure and optimize marketing campaigns.
1

All marketing data is quickly becoming Big Data.
Marketing campaigns today use a plethora of channels to reach audiences both onand offline. Consumers also engage with marketing assets across multiple devices,
such as desktops, tablets and smartphones. At each touchpoint, useful data is being
generated.
2

Big Data helps answer questions that were thought to
be impossible to address.
Marketing data created by campaigns holds valuable information about a customer’s
path to purchase. It can answer the following questions: With which marketing assets
did the customer engage? Which marketing campaigns are working? Which are
wasting the budget? Are the affiliates doing their job, or are they inefficient or
fraudulent?
3

Customers shop cross-channel and cross-device.
Proper attribution can track users across browsers, computers and devices. This is a
vital consideration for marketers, as the average American owns 1.57 mobile devices.
For example, if Sally sees an ad on her iPad for a new pair of sneakers, then searches
for sneaker reviews on her cell phone the next day, and three days later purchases
the shoes from her laptop, proper attribution can connect the dots between those
separate devices and track Sally from her first exposure all the way through to
conversion, scientifically crediting each touchpoint along the way.
4

Measure the halo effect of television.
If you’re a marketer, you’ve probably heard about the halo effect of television advertising,
but do you know how to measure it? When a consumer sits down in front of the TV, it is likely
that he has a laptop or iPad beside him for browsing the Web. True attribution allows
marketers to measure the effects of TV advertising on other marketing initiatives. The
advanced algorithms analyze traffic across all digital channels before and after a TV spot airs,
and correlates that with the offline ad log data. This allows marketers to determine what
portion of direct visits stem from the TV ad, as well as the halo effect, meaning its impact on
other online channels, such as search, display and affiliate.
5

Provide marketing spend recommendations.
Good attribution does more than just measure; it turns Big Data into actionable
recommendations that empower marketers to optimize their campaigns and
marketing spend. Attribution looks at the impact advertising has on conversions and
combines this data with spend data, generating suggested reallocations of the ad
budget. These spend recommendations can be as granular as specific networks,
programs, days and times, keywords, and even creative.
6

Increase online revenue and decrease client acquisition
cost.
Brands typically experience a 10 percent increase in online revenue due to the
optimization recommendations and fraud detection attribution provides. Brands that
implement the optimization suggestions and remove fraudulent resources experience
the largest increase in revenue and decrease in client acquisition costs. For brands
that experience high-revenue, these optimizations can translate into millions of
dollars.
7

Predict the future.
Once the data collection process begins, brands can leverage past data to predict the
future. For example, a brand can look at its holiday campaign in 2012 to optimize its
2013 holiday campaign. If the brand looks at its 2012 data and see its email
marketing campaigns highly influenced conversions, it can put more money into
those campaigns this year. Conversely, if the brand determines that its affiliates had
little effect on converting customers, it can pull money away from affiliates in 2013,
reallocating its marketing from unprofitable sources to profitable ones.
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