From avocados to automobiles, advertisers for Super Bowl LIV are bringing their creativity and their checkbooks to the big game. With such large investments on the line, advertisers need to ensure they aren’t settling for ratings-based results while overlooking critical performance data. Thanks to the expansive growth of connected TVs and streaming services, advertisers can now access an array of new data sources. Super Bowl ad success no longer depends solely on the virtual water coolers of social media the following week, but can be defined by whatever an advertiser believes is an important outcome for their business. Whether it’s the number of pizzas ordered via an app or grocery store sales of a new snack, by connecting the right types of data, this year’s advertisers can quantify the ROI of their multi-million-dollar investment. Think of it as BYOO—bring your own outcome.
This may not sound like a new capability to digital advertisers who have spent years leveraging data and ad tech to make display and mobile accountable for the investment. TV advertisers can change the game with outcome-focused measurement. Thanks to people-based data, TV is done sitting on the sidelines and is ready to jump into the accountability game and therefore earn the spend.
To kick off a measurement game plan, TV advertisers should consider leveraging any of these data sources.
First-party data is the real MVP. As an advertiser, data collected from the people who matter most to your brand—your customers—is quite possibly your most valuable data. Conversion data that you can use for closed-loop TV measurement includes website traffic, app downloads, store visits, and ultimately, sales.
Take TurboTax, for instance, a Super Bowl advertiser whose campaign is focused on instilling confidence in people doing their own taxes. With a wealth of first-party digital data like new account sign-ups, past customer logins and app downloads, they can tie ad viewers to their digital actions. By analyzing viewership data, they can also compare campaign performance against audiences who watched the Super Bowl on linear versus streaming.
By leveraging first-party data, advertisers can assess their investment’s impact in a definitive, quantifiable way. Measurement insights can also fuel future media optimizations across screens, networks, programs and dayparts, which is especially critical to time-sensitive periods like tax season.
Score big with third-party data. What Super Bowl party isn’t complete without a smorgasbord of food and drinks? It’s no surprise that some of the biggest Super Bowl advertisers this year are CPG brands like Pepsi, Pringles and Pop-Tarts. Brands with indirect sales channels, however, often lack precise data to understand the impact of TV campaigns, but third-party data has the power to change that!
Aggregated and made available for purchase in privacy-centric data marketplaces, third-party data can unlock measurement capabilities. A snack company can leverage transaction data from a big box store so they can measure sales volume and lift. Auto brands can use vehicle registration data to see how their commercials translated into more sales, leases or even competitor conquest success. An alternative type of ethically sourced third-party data—mobile, geo-location data—is also proving to be a powerful measurement tool.
Put mobile location data on your roster for real-world insights. It’s an outdated belief that campaigns must be addressable or require transaction data to be measured. Outcome-based measurement can be leveraged across screens and inventory types (including linear, streaming and addressable) and even media companies are using this approach to prove that TV spend is driving real results.
QSR brands use this data to tell them whether someone frequented their restaurant location after seeing an ad. In addition to sales data, auto brands are using mobile location data as a more immediate success proxy, helping them understand which ads help drive dealership visits.
Using data in TV is a team sport. As TV advertisers move into their own intense draft season—the upfronts—it’s critical they do two things if they want a winning season. First, consumers live in an omnichannel world—so should marketers. Don’t create siloed, channel-centric strategies. Make sure your TV partners understand your business goals and how they overlap with the outcomes you’re driving toward on digital. Second, put data at the heart of your strategy. Develop plans and workflows that enable data for linear planning, addressable targeting and, of course, measurement.
An outcome-focused TV measurement strategy requires a team. Seek out a partner who can help you access TV ad viewing data, accurately attribute it to your outcomes and easily share results through a cross-channel lens. With outcome-based measurement and the right team, keeping score of your TV success is possible for the Super Bowl and beyond.
