How Sophisticated Measurement can Power a Winning Media Strategy

Measuring for Success in a Shifting Media Landscape

Today's rapidly moving business landscape is impacted by shifting macroeconomic trends, privacy updates, rising costs etc. And for many performance-driven brands and businesses allowing short-term goals to take precedence became the norm. However, in these transformational times using habitual approaches to spending in advertising may no longer be sufficient. The customer journey is an infinite loop and common practices, like solely relying on Last Click Attribution to simply measure recent conversions, are a pitfall of performance that simply doesn't capture the full picture.

After all, brands need to consistently think about how to better measure (key metrics, methodologies, solutions etc.) and maximize returns for each marketing dollar spent. And with the right balance of goals baked into their strategies and measurement solutions, they can make that job easier. In fact, a report from Nielsen showed that 50% of investments made toward media spending are not even measured - a concerning gap indeed. The same research also showed that Media spending needs to be between 1% and 9% of revenue to stay competitive. (Source: Nielsen's 2022 Global ROI Report)

So, it's clear that traditional methods of spending and outdated models of measurement are simply not able to help brands keep up with the dynamic digital revolution. Incrementality for example is quickly becoming a necessity as it offers a real view into sales caused by the Ads, and - paired with attribution - is no longer just a nice-to-have but has become a staple in every mobile marketing and growth strategy.

But, given the shift away from methodologies based on user-level data to more aggregate-level data, approaches like MMM have found a new liking among both brand and performance marketers. Today, the MMMs are more nimble, don't need years and years of historical data and are more sophisticated & calibrated to measure the impact of media on business outcomes. MMMs now can perform equally well or even better for performance advertisers, provided that contemporary data pipelines, machine learning algorithms, and data transformation techniques are utilized to automate the process, prevent unrealistic outcomes, and eliminate human prejudice.

At TikTok we have been working hard to facilitate this evolution of the MMMs. We have set-up a data pipeline to make it easier to ingest data into the model; offering efficiency and efficacy in turning around data-driven insights.

Recently, TikTok partnered with Nielsen - who have been a leader in running MMMs globally and in the region - to host the first-ever TikTok MMM Summit for the GCC with industry experts, advertisers and agencies across various businesses. During the Summit, TikTok & Nielsen also released the learnings from the recently conducted meta-study on MMM for key CPG advertisers in KSA, UAE and Egypt covering 5.2 Billion impressions, 95+ campaigns across 2 years and 3 CPG Verticals (F&B, Personal Care and Beauty).

The insights were fascinating as they revealed strong opportunities for brands to optimize their ad spends and grow business on TikTok by further increasing sales uplift by 1.3x. (Nielsen Custom CPG MMM Study commissioned by TikTok, 16 brands, August 2020 to July 2022)

So, How Can This Help Advertisers?

Diversify! And achieve +9% higher ROAS on average by combining multiple ad formats.

Brand-led campaigns work! Creator Led Campaign works better and offers an additional $0.23 ROAS

Consistency is Key! Nielsen found that brands who activate at least 3 campaigns per year achieve on average +4% higher ROAS. Additionally, brands which are active for at least 5 months per year benefit from a +3% higher ROAS.

Boost effectiveness with Multi-Objective Optimization! Nielsen found an average lift of +4.2% in a campaign's effectiveness when it ran both awareness and consideration in one campaign plan.

Source: Nielsen Custom CPG MMM Study commissioned by TikTok, 16 brands, August 2020 to July 2022

At the end of the day, for brands, and the platforms that act as the main vehicles for their journey, it's all about results. And today a platform's work towards performance and measurements goes beyond merely garnering sales; it becomes a matter of quantifying and consistently delivering on relevance and relatability.

Because measurement is such a key area of focus for TikTok, we've created a program to house all measurement-related insights (be it via attribution, incrementality, modelling or experimentation) and the most compelling claims that really demonstrate how an Always-On TikTok-First approach can benefit brands. TikTok Works is a program launched to inspire advertisers on the full-funnel impact that TikTok can drive for your business. They are a committed partner to advertisers - helping brands make smarter advertising decisions through a suite of measurement solutions and a team of experts.

Learn more about the Nielsen x TikTok METAP MMM Study HERE