New Veritone Attribute Capabilities Take Ad Performance Measurement to the Next Level

Flexible attribution capabilities give broadcasters an unprecedented degree of flexibility in analyzing the efficacy of ad campaigns

By Michael Kennedy, Director of Product Management, Veritone

We live in an age in which data and analytics influence everything. Digital media businesses take advantage of data and analytics to validate advertising, steer strategy, retain current advertising clients, increase ad spends, and attract new clients. Radio broadcasters, on the other hand, have until lately lacked a way to connect on-air advertising campaigns and the actions that the target audience has taken on the advertiser’s owned and operated web properties.

Introduced in September 2018, Veritone Attribute changed the game. As an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered media attribution platform for broadcast radio, Attribute offers broadcasters a near real-time solution for understanding advertising performance across prerecorded ads, live reads, and organic mentions. With the ability to verify and analyze systematically the effect of the customers’ advertising placements, broadcasters can demonstrate campaign effectiveness and help their clients to optimize advertising campaigns for improved ROI — and, ultimately, increased ad spending.

Two new enhancements to Attribute give radio broadcasters an even more powerful toolset for demonstrating the effectiveness of ad campaigns.

Custom Attribution Timespan
The conventional methodology is to attribute all activity — so, all website visits — within eight minutes of an ad to that particular campaign. The Veritone Attribute application now allows authorized users to configure the attribution window and set it for any time span rather than the standard eight minutes. For example, if an ad airs during a daypart where the target audience is in heavy commute, like the morning drive, the user managing the campaign within Attribute may want to set the attribution time span to 20 minutes. This change will extend the attribution period to give listeners time to get to their destination and respond to the ad on their mobile or laptop. Furthermore, users can create custom dayparts, setting specific attribution windows for specific parts of the day that align best with the advertisers’ call-to-action. This could be a broader window during the morning commute and afternoon drive time, and then a tighter attribution time span for the remaining time so that offline-to-online attribution is tuned in accordance to the campaign and the time of day.

Administrators of Attribute can create and enforce attribution time spans and custom dayparts that apply globally to all users, which allows for organizational standardization in terms of analysis and reporting; however,  there are settings that offer the option of user overrides. When administrators grant users permission to modify the attribution settings, individual users can easily change the set up for particular clients as needed.

Period-Over-Period Analysis
Responding directly to Attribute user feedback, we enhanced the user interface with configurable period-over-period analysis and reporting. An intuitive user interface makes it easy for users to select and compare specific date ranges, a capability that in turn enables radio broadcasters to illustrate to advertisers any lift associated with a particular campaign. Graphs comparing data points (number of visits, visits per hour, visits by date, percent change, etc.) for the two periods allow users to show how a particular call to action may have driven increased traffic to the advertiser’s web property. Smart logic speeds the process of comparing like time periods, such as adjacent 30-day windows, with minimal user intervention.

The new period-over-period analysis tools support analysis before, during, and after campaigns, as well as analysis of different campaigns. Attribute users can, for example, better examine variations in lift due to factors such as creative differences during two different weeks of a campaign. Exporting results to a PDF or PowerPoint report requires just a few clicks, so insights can be shared almost instantly with colleagues or clients.

Together, Attribute’s new period-over-period analysis and flexible attribution capabilities give broadcasters an unprecedented degree of flexibility in tracking the efficacy of ad campaigns. Going forward, this means that broadcasters can bring the ephemeral into the quantifiable, giving advertisers concrete analytics that better illustrate the clicks, conversions, and purchases that may be attributed to aired advertisements and mentions. With access to insights that can help clients to optimize their ad buys, broadcasters can build stronger relationships with advertisers — and compete more effectively against digital platforms for their business.

To learn more about Attribute, go here or watch the webinar recording.