Google Tries to Unify the Data Stream
The old adage that “Half of my marketing dollars are wasted, I just don’t know which half” is being attacked by Google. The formerly search-centric company seems increasingly to be focused on controlling all of the world’s advertising and bringing calm to the media placement chaos.
Their newest announcement is that they are tying TV and radio ads purchased through the Google interface into Google analytics data stream.
Here at Mighty Interactive and Off Madison Ave, we have been creating similar reports for clients for years, but doing it manually with a lot of labor. The goal is to determine which marketing tactics (TV, radio, print, outdoor, PR, search, banners, email) impact Web traffic, leads, and CPA.
We believe that your Web traffic is an analog for your overall campaign effectiveness, since consumers increasingly go to the Web for more information before taking action. This is especially true for companies that are not well-known consumer brands. For example, assuming that TV ad viewers will go to Pepsi.com after seeing a Pepsi spot is a bit of a reach, but for many of our clients we very much believe that the Web site serves as a vetting mechanism and serves as the bridge between interest and action.
So, Web behavior is an appropriate measure of marketing success, the ability to know exactly what marketing tactics you have in the field at any time, and the corresponding Web behavior patterns, is exceedingly nifty. When you add a radio buy to a media mix and don’t see a jump in Web traffic, you start to question the value of radio for that client.
If Google can eventually create a tool for this type of reporting that extends beyond ads placed through their systems, we’ll be first in line to try it. Until then (or until we start to buy more TV and radio through Google), we’ll keep on making our own spreadsheets and doing our own analysis.
Either way, it’s nice to see the monolith confirm our methodology, even if it’s three years after we started doing it.
