Former Nielsen Chief Joins C3 Metrics
[February 21, 2012] John Dimling, the former CEO of Nielsen, and former head of media industry watchdog the Media Rating Council goes from C3 Ratings to C3 Metrics. The well-known TV researcher will lead the development and strategy for C3 Metrics’ move into television. “As you know their whole business is full of funnel attribution analysis,” Dimling tells Online Media Daily. “The idea is that they track what led a person ultimately to an action that an advertiser is interested in. It starts with bringing a person into the funnel and leads to them doing something. The goal is to get away from crediting just the last [online] click, and to recognize that there was advertising activity beyond the last click that influenced the behavior.” Dimling says while attribution analysis has been well developed for online media, it cannot function in a vacuum and must ultimately incorporate all of the brand communications a consumer is exposed to – both online and offline – over the entire process that leads up to their purchase decision. For some products and brands that purchase cycle can be a very long time. For others, it can be almost immediate, Dimling says………….. Read More
C3 Metrics Selected by AlwaysOn as OnMedia Top 100 Winner
[February 7, 2012] C3 Metrics has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the OnMedia Top 100 winners. Inclusion in the OnMedia 100 signifies leadership and game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players. C3 Metrics was selected because their decision engine helps advertisers, agencies, and publishers discover upper-funnel revenue drivers once previously ignored by last click/view ad tracking. C3 Metrics gives credit to a team of ads, creating an advertiser’s unique weighted attribution model. “C3 Metrics offers a unique solution that provides a competitive edge in a crowded market. We are thrilled to have been recognized by the AlwaysOn community, and we look forward to continuing our pattern of growth and innovation in the evolving attribution modeling space,” said Mark Hughes, CEO, C3 Metrics………….. Read More
Taking Issue With comScore
[January 27, 2012] “At the worst possible time, the digital marketing measurement business is again showing inconsistencies. The issue this time is the matter of “viewable impressions,” and C3 Metrics is taking issue with the information released by comScore regarding their research on viewable impressions. comScore’s study of 12 big brands revealed that 31% of the 1.7 billion ad impressions were never in view. The issue is that comScore is taking 12 big brands with huge budgets, and then sampling them on premium sites only. It would be nice if real companies could buy, plan and measure media that way. But it’s not reality. It’s like calling Palo Alto, CA and Greenwich, CT a true representation of America. Not accurate, and not projectable for the large majority of advertisers…………. Read More
Taming Big Data
[January 20, 2012] “In a full-funnel attribution model, 100% of value, say from Lands’ End, is attributed among Originators, Assists, and Converters. All three pieces of this pie equal 100%. Each ad designated worthy of attribution credit is assigned revenue and divided to the cost of the ad, ending with a single number: [attributed revenue of the ad] divided by [total cost of the ad]. A powerful number, yet a simple ratio. This chain of data is going to get longer, and understanding each data point is going to becoming increasingly important in informing how media is bought and sold online. That’s Big Data.”…………. Read More
5 Things Chief Marketing Officers Need To Do To Stay On Top Of Their Game
[January 10, 2012] As written by C3 Metrics’ CEO Mark Hughes, “Just as you can increase your personal lifespan by implementing healthy changes and eliminating bad habits, CMOs may be able to double their tenure by following a plan which includes: The time for experimenting with digital marketing is over. The time for acting like a CMO, and demanding the right metrics, is on.”………….. Read More
New Technology Coming to Television Tracking
[December 22, 2011] “Though it may seem like there’s been a proliferation of product placement on TV already, there’s more coming in the future, said Jeff Greenfield, chief operating officer of C3 Metrics, an advertising measurement company. The reason? There are more and better tools in the works that will help marketers track just how influential those placements are, giving them a precise return on investment for paid placements……………. Read More
This Is What’s Changing The Landscape Of Digital Advertising
[December 15, 2011] “With the last click Kool-Aid behind us, the next year will be about accelerating digital spending for brands. We’ve seen a dramatic shift in attitude to the point where three blue-chip companies – industry leaders in three large ad verticals – are pulling the trigger on entire new measurement systems, in this case attribution modeling. These are big brands—brands that advertise on the Super Bowl – and they’ve not only realized the elephant in the room, but ordered it out………….. Read More
iMedia: 3 warnings of a digital marketing apocalypse
[December 1, 2011] “Marketing measurement, and in particular attribution modeling, can detail the effect that TV has on getting customers into the purchase funnel. Our initial research shows that TV is a critical link in the chain. It is not the whole chain. To think that TV defines the purchase funnel is to think that the last click defines your whole marketing effort. It makes no sense. As a business, digital marketers need to embrace TV instead of fight it”…………. Read More
C3 Metrics Recognized by Best in Biz Awards as Best New Company of the Year
[November 28, 2011] C3 Metrics has been named the silver award winner in Best New Company of the Year category in the Best in Biz Awards, the only national business awards program judged by members of the press and industry analysts from the Financial Times to PC Magazine.
The 20 judges on this year’s panel boast more than 470 years of combined experience and have written for a combined total of more than 180 consumer, business, financial, trade and technology publications nationwide………… Read More
Even on the Ground, a Good Elevator Pitch Can Lift a Client’s Attention to What Counts
[October 28, 2011] Attribution strategies shine a bright light on the details of how a customer entered the purchase funnel, moved through it and decided to act. Accurate evaluation and measurement lead to accurate planning. But accuracy is impossible without attribution data……….. Read More
Looking for Growth in All the Wrong Places
[October 25, 2011] A big part of the problem is tracking the success or failure of digital marketing campaigns. The dirty secret of internet advertising is that it’s the most measurable of mediums, yet it often measures the wrong things. The flaw is last-click attribution. Online retailers often give 100 percent of a sale’s credit to the last-clicked or last-viewed ad. Fixing attribution is important beyond media choices. Once fixed, attribution has real impact on marketers’ bottom lines………. Read More
Agencies + Attribution = Client Retention
[September 27, 2011] The most efficient and demonstrable way digital marketing can be held accountable is through attribution modeling. As Amy Manus recently wrote in ClickZ Academy: “For the past 10 years, looking at the ‘last click’ model may have worked; today, it paints an inaccurate picture given the decrease in clicks, the increase in retargeting and paid search efforts, the impact of social media, and the need to look at a more integrated marketing picture.” Amen. If you’re a digital agency, one of the most powerful ways to accomplish client retention is through attribution modeling. ……… Read More
Give Credit Where Credit is Due
[August 14, 2011] Attribution management uncovers the influence each market touchpoint has on an online sale, and helps marketers budget accordingly. Attribution management done right not only highlights the contribution of each marketing touchpoint in spurring a sale, but it also helps improve marketing performance by giving marketers the information they need to shift their spend to more effective media. According to an attribution study by C3 Metrics, for example, 44 percent of all online transactions analyzed originated with display advertising. That is, display advertising—and not search—first drove awareness in transactions that culminated with a conversion. “While many companies focus on the last click,” says C3 Metrics CEO Mark Hughes, “it is quite possible that the most important click is being overlooked.”……… Read More
Display Ads Responsible for 44% of Q1 Transactions
[July 14, 2011] According to new data from C3 Metrics, 37% of shoppers exit the purchasing funnel by conducting a branded search. Meaning that, rather than checking out they are abandoning carts to get product information. “Marketers could triple their brand search budget, but they couldn’t achieve revenue growth by increasing budget for non-causal media sources. Real causal influence comes from upper-funnel and mid-funnel marketing stimuli driving more consumer transactions all the way through the funnel,” said Mark Hughes, C3 Metrics CEO. “Based on these results, marketers utilizing last click attribution would mistakenly thing that brand search was responsible for a third of their results. In reality…when a purchase funnel finishes with a brand search, it’s navigational in nature – not causal to revenue.”……… Read More
No Country For Last-Click Attribution
[July 6, 2011] It’s known for its Biblical depiction of good, evil and great cinematography. But there’s a scene in the Coen brothers’ 2009 Academy Award-winning film “No Country for Old Men” that parallels digital marketing. It’s near the beginning. The villain, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) walks into a deserted South Texas filling station and asks the proprietor to call a coin flip. The proprietor is understandably terrified. Chigurh asks the proprietor to guess the year of the coin before he flips it. Chigurh says, “1958. It’s been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it’s here. And it’s either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.”……. Read More
Solving the Attribution Puzzle
[June 15, 2011] Discussion with C3 Metrics CEO Mark Hughes regarding Q1 C3 Metrics’s Labs results: “It’s a massive problem”, Hughes said, estimating between 30-45 percent of online media is “wasted” because marketers weight the wrong things and don’t spend in the right places that actually drive consumers to make buys.”; C3 wants to change that by giving more weight to a conversion’s “originator,” which is a way of saying ads higher in the purchase funnel that build awareness. ……. Read More
Display ads Drive Online Sales
[June 15, 2011] Online display ads drive 44% of ultimate online transactions, well ahead of paid search, according to a new study by advertising attribution company C3 Metrics Labs. According to the study, paid search is responsible for 27% of online transactions, with sales originating from affiliate sites (18%), organic search (9%) and other (2%) trailing. For its study, the company analyzed 50,000 online transactions by its client base in the first quarter and determined originators, assists and converters throughout the sales funnel that drove final conversion…….. Read More
Display Ads Responsible for 44% of Q1 Transactions
[June 15, 2011] According to new data from C3 Metrics, display ads accounted for 44% of advertisers’ attributed tranactions in Q1 2011. Basically, that means that display ads pushed about half of consumers into the purchase funnel. According to C3 Metrics CEO Mark Hughes, ” This report clearly shows that display advertising is the first step on the road to success. The sales funnel starts with display ads and even gets pushed further down into the funnel by effective display ads.”……… Read More
With Originators, Assists, and Converters, C3 Metrics Targeting Attribution Says CEO Hughes
[May 3, 2011] Q & A with C3 Metrics CEO Mark Hughes, former VP of Marketing at Half.com (sold to eBay for $300 million in 2000), including key learnings from half.com: “Both eBay and half.com embraced a data-driven culture for media buying and customer acquisition. Sometimes it was a pressure cooker, but pressure makes diamonds.”; How C3 Metrics differentiates: “We’re rifle focused on attribution model analytics, it’s our passion and expertise. C3 is designed by media buyers and technologists who know media.”……. Read More
Magnetic, C3 Metrics Help Marketers Refine Ad Targeting, Search
[April 26, 2011] Magnetic and C3 Metrics have launched a retargeting and funnel attribution model. The combination of platforms from the two companies–search targeting and attribution technology–lets marketers understand the words consumers search to arrive at an advertiser’s Web site …… Read More
C3 Metrics COO Jeff Greenfield to Discuss Full-Funnel Attribution at Leading Global Industry Events
[April 26, 2011] Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, Jeff Greenfield, will take the stage at two upcoming global industry conferences to discuss attribution modeling. Greenfield will discuss how media buyers and marketers can decipher and demystify online attribution at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Toronto on April 28 and SMX Advanced in London on May 17 – Greenfield will share insight and data that demonstrates how looking beyond the “last click” can significantly impact bottom line business results…… Read More
Explainer: Multichannel Attribution
[April 21, 2011] Marketers are now looking at methods of analyzing “pre-preference” influencers among various channels — ad experiences or social media input which primes customers to receive a brand’s message and eventually spark an affinity that becomes an engagement or purchase action. Who Is Using It: Google recently beta-tested a multichannel funnel analysis feature for Google Analytics V5. Some leading multisource funnel analysis providers are ROI Research, Adobe Insights and C3 Metrics. …… Read More
Three Recommendations for Shifting Advertising to the Next Generation
[April 15, 2011] Thankfully, one of the crucial trends of 2011 will be growth of attribution modeling. One of the exciting companies emerging in this space is C3 Metrics. According to C3 Metrics CEO Mark Hughes, “we’ve been forced in the past to use the wrong metrics largely because we didn’t have a choice. Now we have the ability to look at one key number that unites CMOs and CFOs by understanding how every aspect of a campaign impacts revenue.” When we change our key performance indicators from something campaign-focused like “engagement” and shift to a business metric, like revenue, we’ll be liberated to think differently about how we influence consumers……. Read More
C3 Metrics – SaaS model brings simple ad attribution to advertisers
[March 25, 2011] C3 Metrics is a SaaS solution that wants to end such short-sighted thinking by providing an easy to use solution to calculate the true value of all marketing tactics in driving that final sale. The company promises that using its approach, brands can focus on optimizing their mix by spending the right amount of money at each stage, with progressive optimization by shifting dollars to over performing tactics at each stage of the buying funnel. Essentially, C3 creates a sensible single metric by which it evaluates tactics at every stage of the buying funnel.While a single metric may make some of you scoff and think “oversimplification much?” it’s actually rather ingenious, and the specifics of it blew me away. By radically simplifying the math and the analytics, C3 makes it all eminently more actionable……. Read More
Search + Display + Attribution Modeling = Transparency
[March 18, 2011] Magnetic, which relies on search data to retarget display ads, has signed a partnership deal with C3 Metrics, a company that provides attribution modeling. The two plan to announce the deal within the next month, according to Magnetic CEO Josh Shatkin-Margolis. It’s all about data and media optimization. Shatkin-Margolis believes search data provides the best source for retargeting display ads and improved optimization. The Magnetic platform analyzes ROI metrics such as CTR and cost per acquisition (CPA), and considers context vs. keywords, so when a consumer searches on “cell phone” the system automatically buys media on electronics-related Web sites. The optimization leads back to attribution modeling, which will allow advertisers to attribute the keyword or the search engine that led from one click to the next……. Read More
Attribution: What To Expect When You’re Expecting ROI
[Feb 22, 2011] An attribution model should capture all online media sources involved from the top of the funnel where sales originate… down to the very bottom of the funnel. So in a $100 transaction, an Originator would receive a fraction of $100 credit–and the Assist and Converter would also receive fractional credit of the $100 attributed to them respectively. One hundred percent of revenue credit is attributed and split among Originators, Assists, and Converters–accounting for the actual drivers of revenue. Then revenue and respective costs from paid media sources converge in a single, elegant number: Attributed Revenue-to-Spend Ratio (ARSR). It’s a simple ratio any marketer can grasp. If you have a 4.0 ratio for a specific keyword, or specific Display campaign–you’re getting $4.00 in revenue for every dollar spent on that particular media source. Conversely, if you have an Attributed Revenue-to-Spend Ratio (ARSR) of 1.25 for a particular media buy—you’re getting $1.25 in revenue for every dollar spent there……. Read More
Thor Beats X-Men in Movie Marketing Smackdown
[May 5, 2011] COO Jeff Greenfield interviewed on movie marketing and product placement for the Paramount blockbuster film Thor. “You can’t pay money to be in a films like these, but what these companies can do is pledge their media dollars,” says Jeff Greenfield, chief operating officer and co-founder of media analytics group C3 Metrics, describing Marvel’s peculiar approach to merchandising….”There’s always a risk of a sponsor getting lost in the mix, but there’s a greater risk,” Greenfield says. “The biggest issue is not being lost in the white noise, but a product breaking suspension of disbelief even for a moment, like in music videos where the screen pauses on an object to get it more screen time.”……. Read More
