With billions of dollars transacted on metrics that didn’t exist a few years ago, precision and rigor in detailed measurement matter more than ever before. Yet connecting and rationalizing fragmented data across multiple channels remains one of the most significant barriers in advertising. This poses a pressing challenge when considering the unpredictability of this past year and how it has impacted consumption habits.

To deliver a successful cross-channel strategy, marketers and publishers require special insights about how to precisely measure the impact of advertising attention and optimize consumer experiences. It requires unifying all views of prospective consumers in the TV and digital landscapes.

Here are three insider tips that enable you to unify your view:

1. Monitor cross-platform saturation to avoid ad overload

The struggle to achieve visibility goals has flummoxed the most-savvy professional. This is in part because of the historical barriers to measure fragmented data regarding de-duplicated frequency between platforms. However, it is essential to span the measurement gap to ensure that activation strategies align with measurement capabilities. However, you would be surprised as to how often this falls short. For example: 

• Marketers and publishers deliver on valid and viewable as the de facto standard. Yet reach and frequency are often being measured without this crucial filter in place.
• When campaigns are delivered, particular audience segments are curated across 1st and 3rd party datasets. Yet measurement of that performance is based on demographic buckets that only roughly align to how your campaign was carefully targeted.
• With the growing evolution and consumer adoption of connected TV (CTV) programming, it’s apparent that there’s a significant opportunity to access valuable audience share. Still, it’s challenging to unify your CTV strategy with the remainder of your digital and linear advertising approach. And this leaves you blind and unable to advance.

No one wants a wasted ad budget. Instead, leverage measurement solutions that enable detailed analytics of all ad buys across all households to work for you. They can help pinpoint hurdles or make inflight changes while the campaign runs. This degree of analysis on any-time intervals across a digital and TV portfolio will also help you develop best practices for future campaigns.

2. Pinpoint inefficient ads to untangle cross-platform performance

How can you tell when ad waste occurs? This question undoubtedly plagues our ad tech industry, which  faces epochal changes. Consumers encounter ads, even when they are off-target audiences. And relevant ads hit the same audiences ad infinitum. Learning to pinpoint inefficient ads and untangle cross-platform performance allows you to identify how much you spend efficiently sending real messages to real people.

Sophisticated cross-platform measurement solutions provide tools to measure trillions of impressions across TV and digital–and stop bad actors in their tracks. For example, the teams at Moat by Oracle recently uncovered StreamScam, characterized by forged household IP addresses, app IDs, and device models to make it look like ads were playing in digital environments when they weren’t. 

Note the following industry-wide digital ad expenditures for reference:

• 20% serves to bots only—and never end up on the screen
• 20% serves an empty room
• 25% serves inattentive viewers
• 30% serves digital, 40% TV
• 10% serves a saturated audience

3. Unlock sophisticated audience relevancy 

With the constant evolution in ad tech, sophisticated audience relevancy means something different now than it did even five years ago. With new and emerging channels, platforms, and technologies, reaching the people you care about and in a cross-platform capacity is both more important, and in some cases, more daunting than ever.  

Today we know that people have, on average, six devices from which they consume media. All of those devices present a fundamentally different engagement experience and are all vying for our attention.

Let’s be honest, when it comes to reaching people, a one size fits all approach rarely fits the bill. Relying on imprecise definitions measured only by age and gender audiences is one clear example of potential constraints. Focus on finding better alignment with your campaign goals. This requires more inclusive data on audience interests, family structure, past purchase behavior, and more—compared to a national industry-recognized baseline. 

It is critical that marketers and publishers earn how to leverage solutions to tie relevant audiences with a unified view from TV to digital. This will provide true cross-channel clarity and empower more informed decision-making for your next campaign.