When one of the most innovative digital marketing firms needed to help a top 10

global automotive company improve its national online marketing and advertising

campaigns, it knew where to turn. Understanding that proper measurement is the key

to improving any online marketing campaign, the agency tapped some of the most

advanced attribution technologies on the market to help.

Do different car models perform differently on different sites?

This digital marketing agency needed a way to comprehensively measure the

performance of the automaker’s different national display and paid search

campaigns. Not only did this include coming up with a method to objectively and

accurately determine the individual contributions that paid search and display

advertising made to their online campaigns, it also incorporated measuring the

performance of different ad attributes within each channel such as various car

models, ad sizes, media types, placements and combinations thereof. In addition,

the agency wanted to find out the additional lift that display campaigns had on search

conversions. Finally, the agency needed a reliable way to optimize in-flight online

marketing campaigns to maximize ad dollars each month.

Ditching ‘Last-click’ for Advanced Attribution Helps Leading Auto Company Drive Digital Marketing Performance Improvements

BACKGROUND

One of the world’s largest automakers is

using advanced attribution to increase

the number of converted users by over

40% in its national advertising campaign.

AutomotiveC A S E S T U D Y

A Leader in Forrester’sInteractive Attribution

Wave™ 2Q 2012

A Leader in Forrester’sInteractive Attribution

Wave™ 2Q 2012

- Director, Performance Analytics

“Adometry Attribute uses objective, data-driven analysis to help us pinpoint the right campaign combinations that drive maximum conversions for our clients. It’s by far the most powerful and robust solution of its kind in the marketplace.”

Using Data-Driven Attribution to Find the Answers:

• How can our automotive client more intelligently allocate its online display spend across websites and placements?

• What is the optimum number of impressions per user that balances cost against response rates?

• What are the impacts of ad size, rich media, placement, frequency, recency and publisher?

• How can we be more analytic savvy, generating more conversions for our client and more revenue for us?

ADOMETRY PRODUCT AND SERVICE USED

• Adometry Attribute™

Adometry, Inc.4301 Westbank Dr.Building A, Ste. 100Austin, TX 78746

1-866-512-5425info@adometry.com

Last click attribution falls short

The agency previously used ‘last click’ data collected from an

ad server to make decisions about how paid search and display

campaigns interacted and drove conversions. But knowing that the

last click measurement approach is unreliable and inaccurate for

determining advertising credit, the agency searched for a better

solution. With access to the automaker’s online ad campaign log

files, the agency had the necessary building blocks (e.g., display

impression data, click data, etc.) required to accurately measure

cross-channel campaign interactions.

Analyzing cross-channel campaign data yields new insights

To help the automaker properly analyze online marketing campaign

log files, the agency implemented Adometry Attribute – one of the

market’s leading attribution platforms. Using Adometry Attribute,

the agency analyzed the cross-channel campaign data that

included generating reports and discovering insights on different

display and search campaign dimensions.

In addition, the agency used Adometry Attribute’s automated

optimization capabilities to implement on-the-fly changes to in-flight

campaigns in order to effectively re-allocate ad spends. This was

especially useful because the agency had client approval to move

at most $25k of budget between line items within each department

and tactic combination. The agency was also able to leverage

Attribute’s capabilities to develop different what-if scenarios

for each channel so it could determine how to best optimize

investments in search and display campaigns for the automaker.

The latitude to make multiple tradeoffs up to the level of constraint

and the flexibility to develop different strategies allowed the agency

to hit client targets and improve overall performance.

Using the data to drive maximum conversions

In just the first four months, the agency was able to help the

automaker achieve its goals of improving and optimizing its cross-

channel digital ad spend. The main benefits they achieved included:

• Understood how paid search and display interact to drive

conversions. Adometry Attribute provided the appropriate

credit to display campaigns that was previously attributed to the

last click. Each month there was a significant lift in the visitor

conversion rate when search was preceded by a display ad. The

attribution analysis demonstrated that the visitor conversion rate

was 23% when search was not preceded by display. Whereas,

the display-assisted conversion rate was 38% - a 65% increase!

This confirmed the value of the client’s display campaigns,

which was previously hidden by last click attribution. As a result,

the client had a way to justify its current display budget and feel

confident about investing more in future campaigns.

• Gleaned detailed insights into how to best optimize their

campaigns based on varying Key Performance Indicators

and different client scenarios. Based on a range of strict

business constraints, optimization recommendations by Attribute

yielded a 30%-to-42% increase in converted visitors without any

net increase in ad spend.

• Provided deep insights that helped the client eliminate

wasted ad spend, such as: detecting high-spend sites with

low exclusive reach or specific overlap with other sites, and

discovering sites with longer time to conversion than others. In

addition, sites were identified with excessive user frequency;

specific recommendations for daily frequency caps yielded 20%

cost savings.

About AdometryFounded in 2005, Adometry, Inc. provides ad verification and cross-channel attribution intelligence, plus auditing and scoring metrics, to optimize results for the world’s leading online advertisers, publishers, and ad networks. Through its SaaS-based advanced analytics, Adometry processes and analyzes tens-of-billions of impressions and advertising transactions per month to identify the true consumer purchase-decision journey and to maximize marketing ROI. Adometry combines a scientifically proven methodology with a flexible and easy to implement solution to generate results in as little as two weeks. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Adometry is privately held and backed by Sierra Ventures, Austin Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Stanford University. For more information, visit www.adometry.com

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