Is Your Marketing Working? Measuring True Impact with Incrementality
In our “Pass the Mic” series, we’re highlighting insights and expertise from thought leaders across the digital advertising industry. In this installment, we chat with Maor Sadra, CEO & Co-Founder of INCRMNTAL, a measurement platform designed to quantify the incrementality of all marketing efforts.
Pass the Mic 🎤 Meet Maor Sadra
As a technology-focused business leader, Maor has been deeply entrenched in the world of adtech since 2002. In his role as CEO at INCRMNTAL, Maor guides product vision for the company with expertise in attribution, incrementality, and international growth.
Q&A: Demystifying Incrementality
In this interview, Maor dives deep into incrementality, a concept crucial for understanding the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. He shares his insights on why a holistic view is essential, the challenges of defining an “incremental” channel, and the importance of shifting from a growth to a ROAS-focused mindset.
When the topic of incrementality comes up, the word “holistic” often gets used. What does it mean to take a holistic view of your marketing efforts? And why is it important?
Pure incrementality measurement must acknowledge all ad spend, rather than serving as a “point solution” (i.e., MMP). As a statistical method, incrementality examines the overall cause-and-effect relationship between ad spend and performance. Assessment of incrementality must consider blended or “holistic” results.
For example, when considering incrementality, an advertiser cannot only measure mobile ad spend if they also operate a large TV spend or influencer activity. These channels may very likely have a significant impact on marketing performance. A point solution may indicate: “Hey – results in Google spiked up big time!” while in reality, it’s an effect of a TV ad or a paid influencer marketing campaign.
What are some of the channels your clients are leveraging to achieve incrementality? And what are the characteristics of the channels that do it effectively?
It’s really difficult to find characteristics that would define any channel as “incremental,” given the fact that performance – and especially incremental performance – is a relative term. Any channel may be incremental for one advertiser, and add no value to another. Any channel may produce incredible results for one country, and terrible for another.
“What we do find with our customers is that a strategy to improve overall performance and especially incremental performance is to expand and diversify their channel base. They must find the balance between ad spend and efficiency, identifying the “sweet spot” (i.e. the point of maximum yield) of each channel and campaign.”
We do need to note that channel performance is NOT static. Any given channel may perform differently based on overall circumstances, changes in the product, channel mix, seasonality, and other variables – which is why incrementality measurement should be an ongoing process and not a “one-off.”
Let’s talk about the right tools and resources needed to interpret and measure incrementality. What should a marketer never be without?
A grasp of the overall results is so obvious but so important. An advertiser should often look at the basics but also zoom out. Is your overall performance moving in the same direction as your overall spend levels? Are you getting more when you spend more? Do you lose value when you spend less?
Putting aside fancy tools like INCRMNTAL – there’s a “common sense” approach that many advertisers forget to check. We blogged about this, naming it “DIY incrementality.”
What is the most important thing marketers can do to separate organic growth from campaign impact?
It is my personal opinion that organic is eventually just a subset of campaign performance. I believe that all results are results of marketing. Organic is the “un-attributed”; it often stems from the power of the brand (which IS a result of marketing), or the halo effect of a strong yet unidentified variable – anything from an organic influencer to a viral trend.
Every company’s priorities and goals are different, but do you have any rules of thumb for determining the right time to begin shifting marketing goals from growth to profit?
In today’s world, as funding becomes more difficult, any company that can optimize for profitability while sacrificing its growth speed should do so – ASAP.
In what ways can a marketer prepare in advance for the inevitable shift in campaign objectives from growth to ROAS?
Learning how to account for and measure diminishing returns will provide marketers with the ability to know exactly which channels/campaigns to pull back on, and which to scale while optimizing toward ROAS.
About INCRMNTAL
INCRMNTAL leverages a unique approach to tell clients exactly how much of their marketing spend (and other initiatives) is driving results – all without reliance on user-level data. B2C advertisers across key industry verticals like mobile gaming, fintech, ecommerce, education, health, and travel, partner with INCRMNTAL to finally understand what’s working – and what’s not – across their marketing efforts.
To learn more about INCRMNTAL visit: https://www.incrmntal.com/
Check out more resources to get fluent in:
Incrementality Testing | Attribution | User Acquisition | Lifetime Value