As information technology advances and merges more seamlessly with brick and mortar enterprise activities, businesses are now more than ever motivated to engage in “all-platform” marketing.
All-platform marketing involves the use of digital and real life contact points to drum up interest in products and services and reinforce branding strategies.
In a recent report, Paul Pellman, the director of Google’ Attribution 360 service, “attribution” has made great strides in the past five years. Attribution refers to the ability to relate a conversion, or a sale to an individual’s online activity. He explained that in the past, the greatest challenge was to sift through the data and make sense of the massive information coming in through various channels.
Pellman added that matching online and offline data remain difficult, but the move away from cookies towards the “user ID world” is helping the cause.
“People-based marketing” is likewise taking marketing by storm. This term refers to using metrics that measure offline and online activity together. Facebook’s Atlas is an example of this service, as it allows users to measure ID specific activity across different platforms.
An example, the report said, is fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger, which saw a 13% increase in in-store retail sales due to internet ads. However, privacy issues keep data behind walls and silos.
“We try to provide as many tools as we can without violating the rights of the user and their privacy,” Dan Creekmore, director and North America head for Facebook Atlas, said.
And there remain blind spots in cross-platform tracking. For instance, Google cannot track Facebook activity and vice versa. “I understand why Facebook does it. We do it for the same reason,” Pellman noted.
Creekmore added that these “privacy corners” exist because technology platforms are strict about security measures to protect user information. Data protection is important because these companies require user confidence to keep them using their services.
