Home AdExchanger Talks It’s Time For Vanity Metrics To Perform A Disappearing Act

It’s Time For Vanity Metrics To Perform A Disappearing Act

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Brian Mandelbaum, CEO, Attain

Just because a channel isn’t where the final transaction happens doesn’t mean it’s not a performance channel.

Connected TV is the perfect example, says Brian Mandelbaum, CEO of commerce data platform Attain, speaking on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.

Streaming is typically a passive activity. For some people (the author of this article included), streaming is such a lean-back experience that they lie down in bed to watch their favorite shows on their phone.

But the question isn’t whether CTV advertising drives a purchase in the moment but rather whether the exposure ultimately leads or contributes to a transaction, says Mandelbaum, which is why he’s a big believer in media mix modeling (MMM).

An MMM approach considers the statistical relationship between all the different factors that can influence a sale – and that includes upper-funnel marketing.

Advertisers should have a broad purview of how their media is performing across the totality of their investments from the top of the funnel down to the bottom, including loyalty – the whole shebang – so they can be smart about how they spend.

“The industry needs to move away from anchoring on just the proxies,” Mandelbaum says. “What CMOs care about deeply is: Are they selling more? Are they growing the market?”

Measuring viewability, for example, probably isn’t going to help a CMO answer those questions.

“We as an industry should be focused solely on outcome data, and I mean, specifically, a sale, because that data exists now,” Mandelbaum says. “Why are we not … shifting our mindset to something that is more performative?”

Also in this episode: Attain’s recent rebrand, the rise of retail media – and retail data, the problem with data aggregators (aka data brokers), why the industry needs to rip the third-party cookie Band-Aid off already (for the love of all that’s holy and then some) and what Mandelbaum means when he says he has his “television MBA.”

For more articles featuring Brian Mandelbaum, click here.

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