IAB Australia helps marketers set the scene for continuous improvement through experimentation

Thursday 14^th March 2024:  The IAB Australia Ad Effectiveness Council has released the fifth module of its Marketing Measurement Innovation Series, ‘Ad Effectiveness Through Continuous Experiments’.  The module seeks to increase understanding across the industry on how controlled experiments allow marketers to adopt best-practice scientific methods, adding confidence and precision to marketing investment decisions. Controlled experiments represent the most effective way to validate existing marketing activities and assess incrementality.

Natalie Stanbury, IAB Australia Director of Research commented “Controlled experiments have always been an incredibly robust and rigorous way of assessing the impact of advertising and marketing investment. This paper provides the media and marketing industry with information on the types of experiments, as well as advice on running experiments and their important role in a digital advertising ecosystem with reduced data signals.”

The five modules, which highlight real case studies and demonstrates practical examples of how the industry is moving marketing measurement beyond the cookie, include:

1. ‘Mapping the Future of Marketing Measurement’ provides an overview of the proposed reforms to Australian privacy legislation impacting ad effectiveness measurement along with a recap on the technology changes resulting in the degradation of signals required for some ad effectiveness measurement techniques.
2. ‘First-party Data Unlocking Measurement Capabilities’ is focused on how first-party data is unlocking measurement capabilities and includes information on using data collaboration platforms for measurement and guidance for quality data inputs for specific measurement techniques.
3. ‘Advances in AI and Machine Learning Powering Marketing Measurement’ outlines how these technologies and tools are currently used and how they may evolve into the future to support greater efficiencies and effectiveness of digital advertising along with faster and more granular measurement insights.
4. ‘Evolutions in Market Mix Modelling’ outlines what is driving the increased usage of Market Mix Modelling and how the technique is evolving with advances in computing power and machine learning that can provide faster and more granular insights on advertising performance.
5. Ad Effectiveness Through Continuous Experiments’ is the fifth and final white paper in the series and outlines how controlled experiments represent the most effective way to validate existing marketing activities and fill gaps in knowledge and how applying experiments should be approached as an ongoing process that can be continuously improved upon and extended across measurement activities.

The IAB Ad Effectiveness Council undertakes various activities to provide guidance to the industry on the best methods to assess the impact of marketing activities along with insight and inspiration to help marketers optimise their digital advertising investment.

The Council includes representatives from media owners, data agencies, media agencies, research companies, tech vendors and advertisers. The Council is chaired by Yasmin Sanders of SambaTV with members drawn from Azerion, Bench, Brand Metrics, Carsales, Cint, Dentsu, Digital Remedy, Double Verify, Experian, Flashtalking, Google, Hatched Media, IAS, Insighten, Kantar, Lifesight, Meta, Milton Data, Mutinex, News Corp, Nielsen, Nine Entertainment, On Device Research, Paramount, PHD, Pinterst, Playground xyz, Publicis, REA Group, Ryvalmedia, SevenWest Media, TikTok, TotallyAwesomeTV, Tripadvisor, Yahoo and IAB Australia.