Online to Offline Advertising Attribution

Smart marketers use data to measure campaigns and make optimizations. 45% of marketers think that that new customer acquisition is the most important objective for data-driven marketing to achieve. But data, or the lack thereof, can create blind spots in understanding the customer’s true path to purchase, particularly in measuring digital’s impact offline. Enter online-to-offline advertising attribution.

Despite the rapid growth of ecommerce, brick-and-mortar retail are real-world points of consumer engagement, like out of home media. Similarly, major brands like CPG are not, or cannot, be consumed or transacted with digitally. Online-to-offline attribution is a pivotal area enabling a defense (or sound analysis) of digital impact to nondigital sales and ROAS.

As a leading independent media planning and buying agency, Criterion Global’s work in online-to-offline advertising attribution dates back to 2009, before “off-the-shelf” third-party online to offline advertising attribution existed. Early on, we worked with direct response advertisers to trace attribution of lead generation campaigns, using nascent ad tech to prove ROI of digital vs. “traditional” media channels.

Since then, ad tech now enables “closed loop” measurement of online-to-offline impact to a high degree of accuracy.

• Measurement of Offline Impact
• Location-based sales lift
• In-Store Footfall resulting from digital
• Online-to-Offline Channel Analysis (Social vs. Search, vs. Connected TV, vs. Display)

Digital isn’t going anywhere. And Online-to-Offline opportunities don’t end with measurement. Criterion Global manages omnichannel media buying strategy to improve omnichannel outcomes – work that was once-impossible a decade ago for lack of online-to-offline insight.

We’re no stranger to challenges. We’re invested in complicated undertakings, and finding cures to common thinking that hold great advertising back. Offline brands, particularly “challenger” brands working to topple market leaders, often find data on digital impact scarce. Our work across the emerging field of online-to-offline media measurement has yielded major developments for these brands that may invite a rethink of digital for your work paid media efforts.