Delivering ads to consumers across multiple screens has become critical for advertisers as more people divide their attention between various devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, in addition to watching TV. Marketers are taking note and ramping up multiscreen budgets, according to a new report from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Nielsen.
Based on a survey of 274 client-side marketers, media sellers and agency executives, the percentage of media budgets dedicated to multiscreen advertising is expected to rise from 20% this year to 50% during the next three years. The report defined multiscreen campaigns as those that run during a similar time frame across two or more screens, including TV, computer, tablet, mobile phone and digital place-based media.
Even though 88% said multiscreen campaigns will be very important in three years, 71% percent said they aren’t currently managing multiscreen campaigns in an integrated way.
The inability to measure and compare the different channels together prevents marketers from launching effective multiscreen advertising campaigns, noted Bill Duggan, group executive VP of the ANA. “Measurement is the biggest issue that will influence the rate of growth for multiscreen advertising,” said Duggan in a statement. “The industry needs to adopt measures that are consistent, comparable and combinable across screens to provide a complete picture of a campaign’s effectiveness.”
The majority of the respondents (71%) said they use a variety of metrics specific to individual screens, but 73% said they would prefer to use just one set of metrics across all screens.
As for the specific metrics they would like to use, 66% selected reach, frequency and GRPs to determine if the advertising was delivered to the desired audience and 67% said they would like to use brand-lift metrics to assess awareness, likeability and purchase intent. Other elements that the respondents said were critical for an integrated measurement of a multiscreen campaign included consistent methodology across media (73%), real-time measures for optimization (69%) and the ability to understand the competitive landscape (69%).
