What is Measurement?
Advertisers spend millions of dollars on marketing campaigns annually to achieve their business goals, but how do they understand how these campaigns perform? With solutions like Nextdoor, advertisers can uniquely leverage local advertising at scale and effectively measure how their marketing campaigns performed.
“Measurement is the process of understanding how the marketing campaign performed against the key success metric using a set of analysis and statistical techniques,” said Pranav Patil, Customer Analytics Manager at Nextdoor. Measurement enables advertisers to make sound investment decisions based on how their campaigns are performing and allocate their budgets accordingly.
This article explores the importance of measurement for advertisers and provides guidance for advertisers looking to get started with campaign measurement.
Why is Measurement Important?
- Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS): Unlock return on each dollar spent on advertising, whether on a specific channel or tactic, helping advertisers make strategic and tactical decisions on future media investment.
- Optimizing Campaign Performance: Discover new insights and data on current marketing strategies and performance, be it audience, ad formats, bid strategies, and more, which can then be used as optimization levers to drive higher campaign performance and exceed campaign KPIs.
- Long-Term Media Planning: Measurement provides data and insights for channel, creative, and audience effectiveness, as well as how each of them contributes to the business goal for long-term data-driven media planning.
- Business Forecasting: Using data from historical marketing campaigns to build forecasting models that can predict future business performance and marketing contributions.
How to get started with campaign measurement?
At the start of the campaign, set up a measurement discussion to brainstorm and develop a robust measurement strategy to effectively measure the campaign's success.
- Define Clear Business Objectives: Always begin with a clear understanding of the business objective and the desired outcomes. This could be driving awareness regarding a particular product, putting a key message out in the market, or driving leads or conversions for a particular product.
- Set Performance Metrics: Set clear, measurable metrics that align with the business objective. This could include measuring brand awareness for a specific product, gauging awareness of campaign messaging, calculating the number of incremental leads or conversions, or calculating the cost per lead or conversion.
- Choose Appropriate Measurement Solution: Campaign performance can be tracked using a variety of measurement solutions. Select one that can accurately capture and measure the performance metrics outlined in the performance metrics section. The measurement solution could be survey-based, involve statistical techniques, utilize a specific analytics tool, or simply require data analysis. Nextdoor has the capability to support and measure campaign performance using various measurement solutions, such as Nextdoor attribution, brand lift, store visitation lift, conversion lift measurement, and the ability to support various other measurement solutions.
- Data Sources and Collection: Think creatively and thoroughly about how and where to gather the data required for the measurement solution. This could be using a partner data source, an API integration, a tag-based solution, and more. Some measurement solutions can use a combination of multiple data sources. Many advertisers have offline transaction data too, which can be leveraged along with online data to get a holistic picture of a campaign's performance. Get started by implementing and leveraging Nextdoor’s efficient data transfer mechanisms, such as the Nextdoor Conversion API or the Nextdoor Pixel.
- Data Analysis: Leverage sophisticated data analysis methodologies to analyze advertising performance across multiple channels and touchpoints. These include causal inference techniques, pre and post-campaign analysis, or observational analysis to demonstrate how the campaign performed.
- Storytelling with data and insights: Develop additional deeper insights using audience data cuts, vertical, or industry benchmarking data, and additional research data to tell a holistic story of the campaign and the various strategies used in the campaign.
- Test and Learn: Cultivate a test-and-learn mindset within the organization. Continuous learning about what works, what doesn't, and how to scale strategies that work across platforms and tactics should be the goal. The process of testing and learning will help achieve higher performance outcomes in the long run.
Advertisers can drive improved business outcomes and higher performance by setting up the right measurement strategy for their marketing campaigns. Measurement should be thought of as a must have and strategic lever to drive higher return on media investments.
Reach out to your account team to learn more about additional Nextdoor measurement offerings and how Nextdoor can help achieve your business goals.
