Maximizing Marketing ROI in a Fragmented World: Lessons from Nielsen's 2024 Report

The new 2024 Annual Marketing Report by Nielsen sheds light on what’s working best for marketers, from the most effective channels and strategies for reaching real people to accurate campaign measurement and attribution. Here are my top takeaways from the report along with insights into how OMI’s solutions align to empower our clients to adapt and thrive in today’s increasingly fragmented world.

 

1. Increased Ad Spend on Effective Channels

According to the report, 72% of global marketers expect bigger ad budgets compared to last year. And of those budgets, 63% will be dedicated to digital channels, with social media, search, video, display and email reported as the most effective channels. Here are a few tips for finding your best audience – and from there, identifying their preferred channels -- for your campaigns:

 

• Strategic audience building: Success with these channels starts with strategic audience building. At OMI, we leverage advanced data analytics and segmentation techniques to identify and reach the most relevant target audiences for our clients. Go here to read more about the OMI Living File ^® database and our custom audience-building process.

 

• Intent data: Once the audience has been determined, it's critical to get in front of them while the opportunity for conversion is at its peak. That's where intent data can give you an advantage. It allows you to identify and connect with buyers and decision makers who have already indicated they intend to buy the types of solutions your brand offers. Next, OMI layers the intent data on top of our custom audiences to ensure even more accurate targeting. When you uncover who your best target audiences are, what they want to buy, and where they prefer to engage you can achieve optimal results.

 

2. Focus on Long-term Growth

Marketers are focused on conversions, with 70% of marketers polled by Nielsen saying they will likely use more performance marketing in their 2024 media strategies. Performance marketing is designed to drive targeted traffic, conversions, and ROI. Check out this blog for more information on how OMI’s performance marketing solutions lay the groundwork for sustained long-term growth.

 

3. Channel Diversity for Improved Reach

The Nielsen report found that targeted reach was low among campaigns that weren’t dispersed across channels. As the report notes, a cross-media approach is critical in media planning. Here are a few ideas to consider for improving reach:

 

• Data linkage: OMI improves reach through our cutting edge data linkage services, which link personal contact data (B2C) to B2B data to enable brands to connect with their most promising prospects – wherever they might be -- using an integrated or coordinated campaign model. 

 

Data linkage enables brands to engage in generational messaging: B2C data makes it possible using demographics. For example, if the prospect is a business owner the messaging can reflect relevant business offers, but if they are a consumer the messaging can be based on offerings related to demographics and other generational criteria.

 

How does data linkage work? It is performed using an identity graph that combines both B2B and B2C attributes to achieve a complete view of the prospect's profile. The graph's role is to identify individual prospects as they relate to your organization's business objectives and provide a way for you to build specific audiences from that graph that will communicate to corresponding ID graphs of programmatic advertising partners. The resulting data set fuels digital campaigns—such as display, social, and CTV ads—enabling brands to target and connect with their desired audiences at scale very precisely. 

 

• Media activation: OMI is at the forefront of intent-based media activation, with services that put our clients in position to engage and activate the most accurate, targeted omni-channel audiences, allowing them to boost digital marketing reach and ROI.

 

4. Transparency for Better ROI Measurement

Nielsen reports 84% of marketers are extremely or very confident in their overall ROI measurement, but that confidence drops when looking at the individual channels. Only 49% were very confident in their social media ROI measurement. The report highlights how measurement blind spots can misattribute ROI. Here are a few ways to improve transparency and measurement:

 

• Advanced fraud detection: A contributing factor to ROI mis-measurement is the rise of ad fraud (such as non-viewable or invalid traffic from bots) and other ad waste like irrelevant audiences and made-for-advertising (MFA) sites. OMI has partnered with FouAnalytics, led by independent ad fraud researcher Dr. Fou, to bolster our client campaigns with an added layer of advanced fraud detection and prevention. The FouAnalytics platform audits campaigns for fraud, using analytics to identify bots and “fake” campaign results.

 

• Full transparency: Also challenging today is the lack of transparency throughout the digital advertising ecosystem. OMI’s data-driven media activation is based on transparency -- relative to not only measurement but also fees, audiences, and outcomes.

 

The insights gleaned from the Nielsen report underscore the evolving landscape of marketing strategies and the need for adaptability. At OMI, we are committed to empowering our clients with a full range of solutions that address today’s challenges. Reach out to our team for more details on any of the strategies mentioned above.