Marketing Research + Digital Data = Amazing Results. PROVEN

Editor’s Note: This post is part of our Big Ideas Series, a column highlighting the innovative thinking and thought leadership at IIeX events around the world. Joel Rubinson will be speaking at IIeX North America (June 12-14 in Atlanta). If you liked this article, you’ll LOVE IIeX NA. Click here to learn more.

A simple formula but one that has been mostly an article of faith until now. Yes, by now most of you have heard (from me and others) that we should find a way to integrate some digital information into our research and insights approaches. Possibly you have even done this since panel companies are increasingly creating infrastructure to make this fairly straightforward to do (e.g. by putting a pixel in the welcome page of a survey that pings your DMP.)

But does integrating digital data and insights really add value?

Now evidence is starting to come in and the payoff is even bigger than expected.

I will be sharing at IIeX this June results from two foundational studies.

Driving return on ad spending.  In partnership with Viant (leading ad network, Division of Time, Inc.) and Nielsen Catalina Services, I constructed a framework for digital targeting based on frequent shopper data. It was based on principles established by research insights from analysis of purchase panel data as well as media theories of recency (i.e. ads seen close to the upcoming purchase are the ones that create most of the sales effect.)  

In 3 out of 3 experiments, a new segmentation approach using frequent shopper data had huge payoff. One segment (heavier brand buyers who are estimated to be close to an upcoming purchase of the category were called “Persuadables” as they exhibited 16 times the incremental sales response to advertising vs. other consumers. This is a repeatable win for marketers…it should work each and every time. To download the white paper click here.

Driving trial for a new brand.  MoreCastR ™ is a service I have created in partnership with Marketing Evolution (best in class media analytics and optimization.) The concept was that legacy concept testing approaches are getting long in the tooth. In a digital age, we don’t just want to forecast trial, we want to CAUSE trial.  Tested on a major new CPG product launch, we identified High Propensity Triers (HPTs) and then modeled them at scale onto the client DMP creating a segment of 20-50MM intending to drive 20-30% higher trial rates. We recontacted 2,000 respondents who were in the first wave of concept research 3 months after the brand launched.  Findings? Trial rates were about twice as high for High Propensity Triers.  Clearly, that marketer now has a proven target to concentrate on to drive trial for their new brand.

I look forward to meeting you at my talk, Tuesday, June 13, at 9:40 AM (blue track).