By Lucas Sommer
Special to RBR+TVBR
The COVID-19 global pandemic has put a significant dent in the operations of many businesses across multiple industries. These unprecedented times have impacted enterprises in virtually every country, whether they be sole proprietorships or multinational corporations. While most have been hit hard, some are doing extremely well.
Companies that are thriving in the current environment include Amazon, virtually every grocery store and, of course, the oh-so-essential corner liquor store. While business has changed significantly over the last two months, one thing remains the same: the need to track behavior as customers weave their way through the buying journey.
This new normal has caused many companies — especially e-commerce brands — to double down on digital marketing. This heightens the value and need of online marketing attribution. While online attribution soaks up much of the sunlight, it’s important to note that offline attribution is a valuable method for tracking previously unknown customer behavior. The thinking sometimes goes: if they’re not online, then what they do doesn’t matter to marketers. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
Marketers must see traditional offline channels, such as radio, television, and print, and determine how they can track customer behavior as they make their way toward a purchase. The ability to track offline, along with any online attribution, is highly attractive. It’s important to the owners of the more mature mediums and the companies that advertise with them. The challenge determining attribution via these channels is the lack of understanding many marketers have in this area.
Marketers must see traditional offline channels, such as radio, television, and print, and determine how they can track customer behavior as they make their way toward a purchase.
Offline and Online Attribution – A Primer
Marketing attribution is the ability to track specific touches, or behaviors, of a customer during their journey toward making a buying decision and assigning which behaviors contributed to the purchase. In theory, this is the way marketing attribution, and attribution models, are designed to work. In reality, assigning attribution is not a perfected science and marketers with experience and insight are necessary in order to do it properly. While it is much easier to assess multiple online touches and track them toward an actual purchase, attributing offline behavior to foot traffic and physical, in-store purchases is much more elusive.
The Value of Offline Marketing Attribution – Especially During the Pandemic
Consumers of all kinds are spending more time online during the global coronavirus lockdown. As a result, many companies’ servers are being stretched to the limit. Providers such as Netflix and Amazon are attracting record viewers while they also measure the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Many online media companies are happy, but it’s not just streaming services benefiting from the lockdown.
Forbes and the Associated Press have both written about how local newspapers are struggling, in spite of an increase in local news readership, while local TV viewership is up. The decline in newspaper revenue began more than 10 years ago but television is seeing a resurgence.
In addition, radio listenership is up. Statista indicates that 18% of heavy radio listeners are listening to the radio more since the lockdown began. This presents an ideal opportunity for marketers looking to blend their offline and online presence.
For radio, and the companies that advertise with them, the challenge is how to properly track attribution. There is no link to click or trackable button to push in order to be fully engaged with the radio. The same goes for television viewing. How does one determine the influence a TV ad or radio spot has on a person walking into a store intent on making a purchase? This is a tough question worth asking, but the answer is within reach.
Taking Advantage of the Current Situation
As we’ve established, there are more ears and eyeballs trained on radio and television these days. How do marketers properly measure lift in foot traffic or in-store purchases as it relates to these offline channels? The answer is fairly straightforward, but it does take initiative and a willingness to do a bit of heavy lifting.
Identify and gather the data:
A critical piece necessary for determining offline attribution is to gather large amounts of data. Because it’s offline, and there are no links, it requires outside-the-box thinking. For radio and television stations, there are opportunities to engage audiences by promoting the app downloads. Listeners and watchers that carry station apps on their smartphones are also available for tracking via geo-spatial location.
Apps are truly ideal for companies and marketing teams that desire a ton of information from prospects and customers. Not only can marketers identify the customer, if leveraged properly, smartphone apps can inform the advertising company just when the customer entered the store, when they made a purchase and what they purchased (hello, points and rewards programs).
Analyze the data:
Tools such as CRM, marketing automation and ERP solutions are not new. What can be relatively new is the blending of offline and online attribution in order to convey a comprehensive, 360-degree view of customers as they weave their way through the buying journey. It’s wise to understand that offline data and online data will be ingested into whatever tool used in different ways. The key is to ensure data points from offline sources integrate well with data from online sources.
Report and leverage the data:
Properly completing the analysis of the data collected offline and online will enable valuable reporting that provides a comprehensive perspective of a customer’s journey as well as actionable insight. This data should be used to inform future radio, television, and print advertising. What’s needed are marketing recommendations that speak to the customer and influence them during the buying journey. Similar to online-only attribution, any additional offline attribution data should help place the marketer inside the mind of the customer. By anticipating moves, understanding moods, and removing obstacles, future marketing campaigns must focus on that valuable customer behavior.
Using Offline and Online Together – An Ideal Investment
When used together, offline and online channel definitions and attribution models should successfully identify those who visit a website or make a purchase online as a result of offline behavior. Neither offline nor online have to work in isolation. One should inform the other while the seasoned marketing executive expertly tells the story of how radio, television, or print advertising, along with online engagement, lead to specific purchases. After all, measurement of any kind is always about improving the bottom line.
