Media advertising is one of the most challenging aspects of analytics. It typically lacks a straightforward bridge: “impression – website visit – cart – transaction.” Instead, it revolves around brand recognition, reputation enhancement, or creating deferred demand. Media advertising plants thoughts about a brand or product in the viewer’s mind, but whether these thoughts translate into target conversions is uncertain. At newage., we specialise in media advertising and its tracking. For years, we have been launching campaigns, collecting data, and scrutinising them from every angle to enhance tracking. In this case study, we’ll share a current method using Campaign Manager 360. The campaign metrics have been modified to preserve client data confidentiality.

The Client And Objectives

Our client is one of the largest online marketplaces. In their advertising efforts, the client focuses on strengthening their brand and works on promoting specific categories, positioning the platform as the ideal place to purchase particular items. In the campaign we’re examining, the focus was on the Fashion category, with the aim of encouraging the audience to buy clothing.

The advertising campaigns we launch are geared toward brand recognition and association within the target category. However, our primary goal is website conversions and visits to specific sections. This leads us to the question of how to track the impact of media advertising on the audience.

Our Approach

Since the client is a major advertiser who understands the value of data and how to work with it, we need to match their level. The client’s brand is already well-known, and the platform enjoys steady traffic, so we must protect our work and demonstrate that specific customers came as a result of our advertising efforts. This is where campaign manager 360 comes in handy, allowing our agency to gather data at the level of an international company.

Campaign Manager 360 for Advertising Tracking

If we simply launch a campaign in the Google Ads (or even DV360) advertising account without tracking the delayed effect separately, we end up in a situation where people see the ads, remember the brand and message, and then simply disappear.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a warmed-up audience appears unpredictably and uncontrollably. These are not the best conditions for analysing effectiveness. So, first of all, let’s delve into the types of conversions from media advertising - there are three types:

1. Post-click: The audience directly transitions to the website by clicking on the ad.

2. Post-view: Deferred conversion, where the ad viewer remembers the message and later visits the target site from another source (organic search, search ads, social media, PR articles, etc.).

3. Cross-device: Deferred conversion, where the user visits the site later from another source and a different device (for example, sees the ad on SmartTV and later Googles the brand from a phone).

To track post-view and cross-device conversions, we use Campaign Manager 360 for advertising campaign tracking. The service identifies each ad viewer and, when they visit the site later, records this visit.

Progress of the Advertising Campaign

Speaking of specific actions, we integrate all of the client’s tools in advance and generate counters in CM360, which we later embed in the advertising creatives. This preparation takes more time than simply launching a campaign without CM360, but the system provides incomparably more data about the audience.

In the campaign for the client in question, we used a variety of effective placements:
- Advertising on YouTube through DV360,
- Banners in Google Ads,
- Advertisements on Meta.

Let’s imagine a user who, during the day, checked the weather website (direct platform), read an article on a partner site in the GDN, in the evening did household chores while watching non-premium YouTube videos, and before bed, while scrolling through Instagram, finally decided to take a look at the offer. In the report of each platform, this user will appear as a unique ad viewer. Looking at such incomplete data would lead to erroneous conclusions: three platforms seemed ineffective, while Meta appeared to be successful with conversions right from the first contact. These misleading conclusions can then lead to incorrect decisions, such as disabling advertising on SmartTV, even though users there don’t seem to be clicking on the ads.

Meanwhile, CM360 tracking in the described situation would reveal that it was a single person who interacted with the ads four times throughout the day, and the first three exposures warmed the user up for the conversion from the fourth ad. Even if the user didn’t directly transition from Instagram but instead Googled the brand and visited the page in the morning, this would still be reflected in the Campaign Manager report.

Results

Let’s return to the client’s campaign for which we prepared detailed analytics. The campaign reached nine million users, of which 1% transitioned to the site from the ads, and 1% contacted the sellers on the marketplace. Just kidding. But this is the kind of picture you get when analysing banner and video ads by click: get millions of views, and you end up with less than 1000 valuable conversions.

We wisely utilised additional tracking, allowing us to showcase the real course and results of the campaign, including deferred effects. However, in addition to understanding deferred conversions, we also obtained exclusive data that we wouldn’t have collected without Campaign Manager 360.

Exclusive CM360 Data

Thanks to CM360 tracking, we gathered detailed information about the ad audience - understanding who found the ad interesting and how different demographic groups responded to the advertisements. This allows us to draw conclusions for future campaigns, optimise creatives, and search for new target audiences similar to the existing ones.

Another interesting feature of CM360 data is frequency capping control. For each campaign, we search for the optimal ad frequency at which viewers will remember the message and be ready to move further down the sales funnel. In digital advertising, every single impression costs the advertiser money, so repeatedly showing ads to those who are not interested is an unacceptable luxury. So it is worth looking for a golden mean between the number of ad views, their cost and the CR that we receive in various display options.

The frequency report shows the CPA for users who saw the ads a certain number of times. By comparing these metrics, we can determine that in this campaign, it was sufficient to show the ad three times for interested users to visit the target section, while disinterested users decided to ignore the offer. Of course, conversions still occur at higher frequencies, but the profitability of such impressions sharply declines. We can use this information for campaign optimization during the campaign and for planning future campaigns.

Another intriguing graph that CM360 provides is the duration of the advertising effect. Information about deferred conversions (post-view) reveals how long viewers remember the offer they saw in the ad. In the screenshot below, we provide an example of such a report. On the first day, there is a share of post-click conversions and a significant number of post-view conversions. In the following days, the number of deferred conversions decreases, and it can be observed that viewers forget the ad after 9-10 days, indicating the need to show them the creative again.

Thus, after a campaign with millions of impressions, we report to the client not only about the 1% of 1% who clicked but also demonstrate:

- How different audiences react to the ads.
- How many times it is profitable to display the ads.
- How long the audience remember a particular creative.
- How the cohort of those who saw the ads behaves on the website.

Thanks to CM, we conduct massive campaigns and collect a colossal amount of data, from which valuable insights can be continuously extracted. We urge you to do the same because the cost of CM tracking is incomparably justified by optimization and analytics for future campaigns.

Use these arguments to leverage the benefits of Campaign Manager for your clients.Conclusion: How to Protect CM360 Data from Clients

We have been using CM360 for years, and we have often argued to clients about the necessity of such analytics. So, we are sharing the most compelling argument. Now, more than ever, we must work intelligently and maximise the client’s budget; we must squeeze every penny entrusted to us. The Campaign Manager 360 helps with this in the best way possible.

You have to pay for CM tracking, and in doing so, you are purchasing the most detailed information about your own audience. You will receive reactions to ads broken down by demographics, an understanding of the effective frequency in a specific niche, and insight into deferred effects. These, among many other available reports, will allow for more productive planning, not only for campaigns but also for inventory and campaign load. At least once every six months, it’s worth running a flight with CM360 to keep your finger on the pulse – tracking expenses will pay off with effective budget utilisation in the future.

Clients may also raise objections that not all post-view conversions should be attributed to media advertising. “After” does not necessarily mean “due to,” and we understand this. That’s why we regularly delve deeper into media effects. When CM360 identifies viewers of ads who then visit the website, we can separate them into a distinct cohort of website visitors and compare their behaviour on the site with the behaviour of other users who were not warmed up by media advertising.

Use these arguments to leverage the benefits of Campaign Manager for your clients.