Understanding the Impact of Advertising on the Customer Journey

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Pranav Patil
05/08/2023

Pranav Patil, a seasoned marketing analytics and measurement leader, shares his insights on the evolving landscape of media measurement, how customers use data to drive advertising effectiveness in the current measurement landscape, and his personal journey in themeasurement space. Pranav stresses the significance of emphasizing the needs of the customer, experimenting with data, and making decisions based on data in order to conduct effective media measurement. CCW Digital is thrilled to partner with Pranav as he shares his knowledge and thoughts on the future of media measurement.

About Pranav’s Passion for Marketing Analytics and Measurement

Pranav’s first contact with data came through a side project that he took on while at his first job. Since then, he has been curious about how data can drive decision-making and organizational business impact. He believes that data-driven decision-making in marketing has the ability to help advertisers understand where they should be investing their next marketing dollar.

Pranav has worked with some of the largest advertising customers in the US, helping them implement best-in-class measurement solutions. He has led and implemented several critical measurement projects, like the global multi-touch attribution solution and ad-serving platform data reporting development, that measure over $100 million in media budgets and are utilized by over 100+ users globally.

How do Advertisers use Marketing Analytics and Measurement to Improve Customers' Experiences?

There has been tremendous innovation in the digital ecosystem in how users consume content and interact with various forms of media. This has led to growing competition between media companies seeking user attention, resulting in increased touch points in a user’s journey.

For example, a simple customer journey could look like:

1. Customer searches for a product on Google, then browses the brand’s site
2. They see an ad for the brand on YouTube
3. They then see an ad for the brand on Instagram
4. Finally the customer decides to make a purchase on the brand’s website

All these touchpoints have, in some way, influenced the customer to purchase the product. But, how does the advertiser understand the best-performing partner, creative, messaging and accordingly give credit? Well, that’s where the beauty of marketing analytics and media measurement kicks in.

Advertisers use techniques like multi-touch attribution to give credit to each touch in the customer's journey based on a data-driven model. This helps to understand the best-performing partners, creatives, audiences, or media tactics
Advertisers build path-to-purchase journeys and audience segmentation analysis to get a deeper understanding of their customers
Techniques like incrementality measurement help advertisers understand the incremental conversions that their marketing dollars generated that wouldn’t have happened if they did not advertise on a platform

Thoughts on the Future of Media Measurement

There have been a lot of changes in the world of media in the last 2–3 years with new privacy laws, Apple's ATT policy, and a larger evolution on how data is collected and used. I expect to see more of these changes leading to the evolution of newer ways in which we measure advertising effectiveness. This will lead to advertisers testing and experimenting with newer techniques and tools and going into hyper-experimentation mode. Test, test, test is what we will see as advertisers will want to understand what is really working (creative, messaging, audience, publishers, etc.) for them so that they can effectively allocate their budgets.

To learn more about Pranav Patil and his work, please join his session at our upcoming online event. Register here or connect with him on LinkedIn.