Just over one-quarter (17%) of marketers feel equipped to implement end-to-end measurement effectively, despite the majority (66%) recoignising the crucial need for it.
The findings from Nielsen’s Annual Marketing Report were recently shared with the IAB Australia’s Marketing Measurement Innovation Series.
The gap in confidence and capability is particularly pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region, where only 45% of marketers are confident in their ability to measure ROI across digital channels meaningfully.
Kirsten Riolo, Nielsen Australia’s head of Publishers and Platforms, expressed concern about the lack of confidence in calculating ROI, which she said is impeding industry growth and the optimisation of campaigns.
“Worryingly, confidence in calculating ROI across digital channels remains startlingly low in APAC, with only 45% of marketers feeling assured that they’ll be able to measure it in a meaningful way.”
Andre Furze, Nielsen’s director of Marketing Effectiveness for Australia and New Zealand, echoed Riolo’s concerns, emphasising the challenges posed by the industry-wide use of disparate martech solutions for cross-media measurement:
“This scattergun approach makes viewing performance, especially against the rest of the industry, particularly problematic,” he said.
“Developing a well-structured marketing strategy and tailored measurement framework, which incorporates various solutions, like econometrics modelling, such as Nielsen Marketing Mix Modelling MMM, A/B testing and attribution are needed in order to better utilise resources and drive success,” Furze added.
Nielsen’s contribution to the IAB series also underscored the transformative role of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in effective marketing mix modelling (MMM), highlighting the value of Nielsen’s Predictive ROI (PROI) solution, which leverages Machine Learning and Artificial intelligence to forecast the ROI of a brand’s media plan with minimal inputs and faster, more cost-effective results.
This solution utilises Nielsen’s comprehensive Compass ROI database, which includes extensive models and data across 60 countries, 100 categories, 3000 brands, and 5000 models.
Despite recent tech advancements, Riolo acknowledged the concerns of several experts regarding the oversimplification of algorithms in automated marketing evaluation tools, especially given the increasing trend of audiences travelling across various channels.
Riolo added: “In a media universe where audiences are increasingly becoming platform nomads, it’s essential for marketers, agencies, and brands to invest in the latest tools and technology to ensure their messages resonate with their audiences.
“Whether you’re a marketer, an agency, or a brand, you’ll need to invest in the latest tools and technology to ensure your message not only reaches your audience but resonates. As champions of the APAC media ecosystem, our role isn’t just to understand the changing landscape, but to shape it, facilitating data-driven decision-making for both strategic planning and in-campaign optimisation.
Riolo and Furze offered recommendations for marketers wishing to effectively navigate APAC’s rapidly changing media and marketing landscape, including:
• Prioritising upper-funnel marketing as a significant part of investment strategies
• Fostering understanding and support for upper-funnel efforts within organisations
• Acknowledging and managing the duality of objectives in channel mixes
• Simultaneously optimising for multiple objectives
• Developing a resilient plan to maintain strategic direction
• Holistically measuring short-term, long-term, and equity impacts to adapt to best practices and market trends, and;
• Investing in a unified and accurate measurement solution
In response to the industry’s changing needs and commitment to measurement excellence, Nielsen has introduced a novel solution that integrates short-term, long-term, and equity impacts into a singular, innovative solution, empowering marketers to make smarter, data-driven decisions that drive business growth, called Marketing Mix Modelling MMM.