• by Aaron Goldman , Op-Ed Contributor, May 19, 2008

The breakout session on Cross-Channel Optimization started with Gerry Bavaro from DidIt pointing out how jaded marketers have gotten by the strong accountability of search, expecting all their media to be as measurable.

James Lamberti of comScore suggested the first step is to make sure you monitoring activitiy across channels. He suggested establishing a common ground by using reach and frequency metrics across channels. And then diving deeper into specific channels to get more granular with the metrics that are unique to each. The challenge, of course, is that marketers have different agencies managing different channels.

Terry from Bose discussed how they are doing media mix analysis to understand the impact of each channel.

Gerry offered a best practice to use coupons to track retail sales tied back to online/search activity.

Nancy from Citi pointed out the challenge of maintaining search/online budgets in the face of recessionary cuts.

when offline media is planned upfront