• by Michael Kaushansky , November 18, 2011

Mobile measurement continues to be a hot topic in digital media. We need three things to enable mobile measurement:

1) Develop a measurement framework;

2) Centralized data collection;

3) Provide an integrated reporting view.

1)        Developing a Mobile Measurement Framework will ensure accountability of mobile investment and deliver the necessary insights to optimize your campaign.  Mobile marketing is still defining the road map to marketing effectiveness, but marketers should not wait to develop their own mobile effectiveness platform.  Mobile marketing effectiveness should start with the alignment of your measurement against your business and campaign objectives.  Critical to the measurement process is the selection of the right metrics.  Simply put, metrics should drive actionable results and provide clear insight into the overall operational efficiency and business success.  As mobile technology continues to improve, the list of traceable metrics will continue to increase.  It’s essential to initially segment metrics into:

Diagnostic metrics – metrics aimed at improving operational efficiency. Diagnostic metrics provide a real-time pulse and should be closely watched for optimization opportunity.  Examples are: Impressions, Clicks, Visits, Visitors, Time on Site, App-Usage, and Searches.

Success metrics – metrics aimed at tracking success of a campaign.  Success metrics are qualified consumer initiated activities closely connected with success outcome of a campaign. Examples are:  Repeat Visits, Registrations, Repeat App usage, Sharing and Opt-ins.

Mobile marketing campaigns are often divided into three principle objectives: brand building, conversion, and loyalty.  While many of the diagnostic metrics may be similar across all three objectives, each objective necessitates uniquely different success metrics.  We propose developing a system for connecting measurement directly to your campaign objectives, a 7-step process:  

A.        Clearly define the business objectives of the campaign (brand, conversion, loyalty) and the objectives of each mobile tactic (SMS, Mobile Display, Search, Site, etc.)

B.        Outline a measurement plan.  Define the frequency of data and reporting, and most importantly, identify the diagnostic metrics versus success metrics.

C.        Evaluate metrics in concert with the advertising plan, triangulate cost and campaign flighting data to tell a complete story.

D.        Segment your results by your target audience, geography, mobile devices, and engagement level; this will further inform the effectiveness of your campaign against specific segments.

E.        Employ statistical rigor in comparing your metrics, natural fluctuations of data is commonplace, so understanding whether the difference in metrics is statistically significant will save you from chasing random conclusions based on random data.

F.        Analyze the impact of mobile success in conjunction with other media, e.g. using survey delivery to link to branding and behavior or some version of unique tracking code to map out consumer pathing.

G.        Do not use click-through as the fast answer to ROI.  Leverage widely accepted econometric tools to measure impact on the business at the end of every campaign.  In the current economic environment, it is increasingly important to measure the value of every marketing dollar spent.

2)        Centralize You Data Collection

Leverage Your Existing Data Collection System. Measuring mobile as a stand-alone channel will limit your insights and understanding of how mobile marketing performs within the entire mix.  We suggest evaluating existing data collection systems, such as Omniture or Google Analytics, which already collect a large amount of marketing activity from websites and other digital properties.  

The centralization of data is essential to provide a 360-view of advertising effectiveness.  The process involves aggregating the data into a centralized portal for the purpose of unified single-source reporting.  Tools such as Omniture may not be ideal for storing all marketing activity -- however, the ability to integrate mobile metrics alongside traditional website metrics reduces that additional step of tracking yet another channel in silo and provides more comprehensive view of all your sites.

3)        Tracking Your Success in a Single View

The goal is make reporting easy, simple, with little resource and time required.  The process of aggregating multisourced online and mobile campaign data should be made seamless and quick.  Develop quick integration and upload-process for offline and any 3rd-party data using a flexible data integration process/software.  This will enable you to have a holistic approach to measurement and reporting.