Publishers embrace software to deliver effective campaign measurement to advertisers

Brand Metrics, the software platform that measures the brand lift delivered by digital brand advertising, has been working with Immediate Media, the special interest content and platform company that owns and operates some of the UK’s best-loved media brands, since June 2021. The Digital Voice caught up with Alison Finnegan, Insight and Ad Marketing Director at Immediate Media and Sumran Kaul, Client Lead at Brand Metrics, to discuss the partnership and how it’s helping Immediate Media bring brand measurement to a wider range of clients.

This is a relatively new partnership. How did it come about?

Alison Finnegan: Our in-house insight team has carried out ad effectiveness measurement for years, which worked well, especially for print. However, the growing complexities of digital advertising and the fact we're running more digital-only campaigns, and the sheer size of our brand sites made it increasingly difficult to find those people on our sites who have been exposed to specific campaigns.

We realised we needed help to solve this issue and a solution that would prove to our clients and media agencies the value of running their campaigns on our sites. That's why we selected Brand Metrics, and I genuinely believe this partnership gives us a competitive edge.

Sumran Kaul: We're delighted to be working with Immediate Media as we're passionate about helping premium publishers thrive by providing a platform that allows advertisers to recognise the value publishers deliver for them.

What was the challenge you faced in how you previously operated?

AF: Even for large campaigns, measuring ad effectiveness was very complex. The effort required to deliver this meant we couldn’t offer this on smaller ones.

But now that’s changed. Today we have a solution that overcomes the complexities associated with digital media campaigns and allows us to extend effectiveness measurement to small, programmatic, and native campaigns. In doing so, we’re spending less internal time but gaining critical insights into the effectiveness of digital campaigns across our sites.

Does this mean it's now easier for you to scale up?

AF: Yes, it does. Booking a campaign on the Brand Metrics portal is straightforward and neither time nor resource-intensive for the team, so scaling up and handling more campaigns is not an issue.

SK: We're seeing publishers use this ability to scale their measurement quickly to build up their first-party data. This is helping them use the data strategically by packaging up their audiences, developing their commercial narratives and justifying premium prices to clients by proving superior brand lift.

What were the must-haves when you were making your decision making on a measurement partner?

AF: Ultimately, what they offered had to deliver and had to be credible. When you're presenting results to clients who have made considerable investments in their campaigns, you must be confident that what you are reporting on is authentic and delivers value for them.

As a researcher at heart, it had to be built on a robust research methodology. There's an awful lot of smoke and mirrors in digital measurement, so I needed to be sure that what was promised was delivered. With Brand Metrics, I found it reassuring that the team had wide media experience, so they understood the challenges and what needed to be delivered.

Finally, with a small and stretched team, it had to be something easy to implement and would make our lives easier.

SK: Today, all teams are under pressure, so the platform supports efficiencies, freeing up data and insights teams to focus on higher-value activities across the business by removing those time-consuming, laborious, but still important tasks.

So how will you measure the value of this partnership going forward to determine if it's a success?

AF: Obviously, it's early days, but there are real signs it's making a difference.

Today, winning any campaign requires an element of measurement. Previously we wouldn't have been able to commit to this for some campaigns, but now we can. The ability to measure a broader profile of campaigns means we're actively winning business that we wouldn't have in the past.

When every publisher is battling for marketing budgets, our ability to offer brand measurement upfront gives media agencies and clients the confidence to book with us. And this confidence is further enhanced by the fact our partnership delivers independent and transparent results for our clients. This gives an additional layer of authenticity to what we offer, which they appreciate.

SK: Offering brand measurement is becoming table stakes for publishers. While many agencies want to work more closely with premium publishers, not providing this is putting them off. The ability to measure allays their fears and gives them the confidence to invest.

And for us, being results agnostic is critical. Agencies and brands are increasingly wary of dealing with companies that present their results using their own measurement systems as there's an inherent conflict of interest. But independent, accurate and transparent results drive credibility and avoid the accusation of 'marking your own homework'.

AF: Having this independence gives us the confidence to deliver helpful feedback to our advertisers, and work with them to maximise results for future campaigns.

Will this drive demand for more brand measurement?

AF: The advertiser's appetite for measuring effectiveness has always been there. The problem has been that it's expensive and complicated, so restricted to just those larger brands. Brand Metrics allows us to democratise it by delivering it on much smaller campaigns in a manner that's not expensive or resource-intensive for us.

As the only magazine publisher using Brand Metrics, we're benefitting from the fact many of the agency teams already know of them through their relationship with other businesses. In this respect, much of the hard work's been done for us as the agencies already have confidence in the Brand Metrics approach.

SK: What it does mean is that publishers can finally offer their advertisers measurement that’s relevant to them. Brand building metrics focus on the long term and differ from the traditional performance metrics advertisers have been forced to accept. Now they can align measurement to what's important and adopt metrics that show the true impact of their advertising. Rather than focus on the details of a campaign, they can now focus on the actual outcomes.

Also published in: The Drum

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