After a year of unpredictability, brands are striving to get closer to guaranteed business outcomes.
But, to do that to best effect, they are going to need to start acting before the campaign has ended.
That is the view of Wenda Harris Millard, the industry veteran who is now vice chairman at strategic advisory MediaLink.
Toward certainty In this video interview with Beet.TV, Millard says the move toward outcomes as a focus is understandable.
"Given a lot of the uncertainties in our world now - socially and politically, business-wise - really focusing marketing dollars on business outcomes I think is more important than ever before," she says.
"I think brands are still looking for the classics - driving awareness, consideration, intent to purchase - all those classic metrics.
"But now they're really looking to see and measure engagement, online action, conversion to online and offline sales." Outcomes throughout the funnel Millard - previously co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Chief Sales Officer at Yahoo!
- says it is now just about moving from the top to the bottom of the marketing funnel - not just about foregoing brand building in pursuit of measured sales.
Rather, she thinks brands need to have the capability to bring certainty to the top and middle of the funnel, too.
"One of the challenges that marketers have had is they're still getting post-campaign reports," she says.
"What a company like LoopMe does is right while that campaign is happening, leverage the data insights that they have through their partnerships, add the AI, and they can adjust that campaign in real time and bring in better targets and net new customers.
It's really literally closing the loop." Rebuilding relationships Millard is referring to LoopMe, an outcomes-based advertising platform of which she is an advisor and that this year unveiled tools to optimize mid-flight campaigns in pursuit of attributed goals.
Going forward, she expects to see brands have a new focus on relationship-building.
The deprecation of third-party cookies and withering of mobile identifiers driving a new focus on gaining consented audience buy-in.
But Millard also says the times we live in are calling for a "respectful" tone that calls for emotion.
"That to me is the most exciting thing that I see on the horizon," she says.
Millard recently joined LoopMe as member of the company's data advisory board You are watching “Outcomes-Based Advertising: Connecting Ad Exposure to Business Results,” a Beet.TV leadership video series presented by LoopMe.
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