Pandemic-induced shifts in consumer behavior resulted in a burst of content consumption across emerging platforms — from connected television to streaming radio and beyond. B2C marketers quickly shifted budgets toward these more trackable media channels in efforts to quickly capture the attention — and dollars — of prospective customers. But a new challenge emerged: Relic media analytics approaches used to measure tactic-level ad performance across targeted audiences couldn’t accurately measure cross-platform efficacy.

Now, brands must adopt a new approach to understand media performance. The new media analytics equation combines media performance and audience insights to build data-driven plans. And I’m excited to share our inaugural report on media analytics that outlines the key elements of this new media analytics equation. To prepare for this calculation, B2C marketers should take a few critical steps.

First, Shift Your Media Analytics Mindset

The foundation of this new media analytics equation is embracing three guiding principles: customer focused, values driven, and informed. These principles are the bedrock of your media and audience insights — every analysis you conduct must have these three principles in mind to ensure you’re putting the customer at the center of your media investment decisions.

Next, Adopt The New Omnichannel Media Analytics Equation

The new media analytics equation combines cross-platform media measurement and audience insights to help inform data-driven planning. Use cross-platform media metrics, like deduplicated reach, frequency, outcomes-based KPIs, and proxy metrics, like attention, that indicate the impact of nonmedia factors, like creative. These metrics provide dynamic insights into the power of media, audience, and creative. Then, analyze audience insights by using analytics to determine customer consumption patterns, overlapping audiences across platforms, and likelihood to purchase to home in on the right audiences to reach.

Finally, Put Your Insights To Work

Use media performance metrics and audience analysis to create an optimized, integrated planning strategy. Creating a close-to-real-time feedback loop, where insights inform activation, helps marketers pinpoint the right message, channel, and targeting strategy to drive incremental conversions. Test scenario planning and optimization tools to help predict the likely outcome of future media investments. Estimate the impact of the emerging media channel investment by using performance metric proxies in scenario planning models.

Marketers have their work cut out for them, even more so now in an economic turbulent environment. Before making adjustments to your media investments for 2023, read my media analytics report to make sure you have the right analytics to create media efficiency while meeting customers’ needs.

Do you have questions about media analytics? Set up a guidance session!