Integrating ad serving and web analytics data means moving beyond standard, unrelated metrics to measuring a real sequence of events within a website -- from initial user exposure to interaction and high revenue conversion. By bringing together the two systems, ad serving data automatically flows into the analytics platform on a daily basis, enabling true integrated campaign reporting and side-by-side comparison of display ad campaigns with other marketing channels (like broadcast or print).
The thing is, integration without a plan is just a technical achievement. Exciting as it is, if you focus on this alone, there is no benefit. Technology should really be a means to an end instead of the be all and end all.
There are a few key points that you must keep in mind to make this a valuable exercise. The technology is simply the enabler and must work for you.
1. Make a plan. It's vital to fully prepare your objectives in a structured way before you even think about engaging with a technical team. You have to understand what you ultimately want to achieve from the integration at a business level. This will allow you to plan your integration to deliver on this ultimate goal specifically and keep the project focused, as well as measurable.
2. Start with the end in mind. Use the first step to help understand the vision, then break it down into bite size phases. Unless you take it step by step, you may become overwhelmed and not start the project at all.
3. Automate to remain effective. Combining ad serving and analytics data opens the door to planning a remarketing programme (an activity encouraging renewed use of a product in which market interest has declined), but this can quickly become complex and run away with you. You may get caught up undertaking activities that have no effect on the original goals.
There is a risk of spending a lot of time administering the programme, taking up a lot of valuable time and resources, then not getting the results you really need. You need to automate the message creation, deployment and tracking, based on individual preferences. Then, you use your resources effectively to highlight productive behavioural segments, optimising your return on investment and building out the programme into more important areas
4. Do the job properly. Bi-directional integration is key to connecting analytics and ad serving data properly. You must have data flowing both ways -- if you just have data going from email into ad serving, you'll still get integrated reporting, but no remarketing capability. Make sure you don't do half a job, otherwise you'll be left with a very expensive and technically sound system that can't actually do very much.
By keeping these points in mind, marketers should be able to prioritise their efforts and spend, as well as more accurately assess their contribution to the sales pipeline. When you integrate your analytics and ad serving platforms together, you can provide your sales team with real relevance. By understanding a customer's browsing habits, you can quickly provide much more meaningful context to the sales process. If you test, measure and refine the segments you then remarket to, this additional information can be translated to increased sales.
Grant Keller is EMEA director at Acceleration.
