Two major data stories seem to have taken center stage over the past few weeks. The first is the transformation of everything imaginable -- and I mean everything -- into a source of actionable information. The second is that we're finally starting to wrap our heads around syncing measurement across traditional and digital channels. These are both obvious points. But taken together, they're revolutionizing what cross-channel data and metrics are coming to mean.

Lately 3MS has been widely referenced in blog posts and presentations on digital measurement. It has spilled over into broader contexts like cross-platform measurement, and shows up at venues focused on offline media. This is wonderful, and speaks to the ecosystem's avid desire to make measurement make sense, and to do so with care as well as speed. Points of view are the interest we earn on our investment to facilitate the process, and interest earned on the time commitment made by executives from across the ecosystem. Points of view and perspectives sometimes need grounding in the facts. Following is …

Everyone is racing to connect all their online data to a single user, to provide a view into that consumer's behavior and engagement with a product/brand across a plethora of touch points and channels. There are many marketing benefits in having all the information about your consumer at your fingertips; however, is it cost-effective to embark upon multi-source consumer-level data integration? Are there alternatives?

In my world, much of what is going on in online metrics converges around 3MS, "Making Measurement Make Sense," a collaborative initiative among the IAB, the 4As, and the ANA. Not long ago, I saw a presentation update on 3MS. Something caught my eye on one of those fancy Bain consultant slides, something that I originally assumed was a typo: that the relevant universe for evaluating digital campaign reach should be TV households. Turns out, though, that this wasn't a typo.

Based on the comments and questions readers had on my January article "Attribution Management: A Direct Response & Brand Marketing Tool," I thought I'd delve into the topic again. This time I'd like to look at it from another angle, discussing a different methodology for utilizing marketing attribution techniques to unlock brand-focused insights.

It's becoming widely known that attribution and optimization both play important roles in helping online advertisers improve the performance of their cross-channel digital campaigns. But today, many attribution and optimization methods still rely on simple models and human intervention, which are fraught with errors and pitfalls when it comes to accurately and effectively improving ad campaign performance over time.