Contributed by Jay Friedman, COO of Goodway Group.
For Part 1 of this blog series, get ready to debunk three advertising myths with Jay Friedman, COO of Goodway Group. From attributing offline sales and store visits to digital media, Jay has helped lead the company to 10x growth, now making it the largest independent programmatic media company on the planet. We’re extremely excited to welcome Jay Friedman and his blogs on how to successfully connect a shopper’s cyber footprint to actual foot traffic.
As a retailer, online advertising can be an exciting avenue to pursue new customers. But how do you know if every like turned into an actual purchase? How do you connect every view to an in-store visit?
Attribution isn’t a new problem for retailers. With traditional advertising, it can be difficult to prove that a flyer, TV commercial, billboard or radio sponsorship actually drove customers into stores. For programmatic advertisers, the challenge is much the same. If retailers are going to advertise online, they want to validate that their efforts are delivering offline results.
The ability to attribute offline sales and store visits to digital media is within reach. In connecting the dots between their cyber footprint and your store’s foot traffic, we can debunk three digital advertising myths and pinpoint ways retailers can use programmatic media to more effectively connect with customers.
Myth #1: Attribution requires sacrificing my customers’ privacy.
Reality: By de-identifying personally identifiable information (PII) in both offline and online data sets, you can connect the dots but also protect your customers’ privacy and your brand’s integrity.
At a time when consumers’ concern for their privacy is at an all-time high, I want to point out the anonymity and trustworthiness of our data. Goodway Group developed the Validate360™ solution to guarantee 100 percent anonymity and to track digital ad campaigns and their effectiveness at influencing actual purchasing decisions.
Advertisers can also utilize data from opt-in panels, who have opted into sharing their online activity and mobile locations. This approach compares behavior and location data across desktops, tablets, connected TVs and phones against local ad requests to determine how many ad impressions actually brought consumers into stores. While this data closes the loop between ads served and in-store visits, it doesn’t indicate actual purchases influenced by digital reach.
To learn how big data plays a role in online attribution, continue on to Part 2.
