We cover the basics and more in our ABCs of Marketing Measurement series. Learn More

What Are Advertising Analytics?

What are advertising analytics? Advertising analytics are a wide-ranging and scalable process of advertising and marketing data analysis that helps marketers determine the best course of action for future ad spend.
Robust, comprehensive, and rigorous, advertising analytic tools, when utilized properly, give companies, and the agencies they work with the power to make informed decisions and drive better results across all their marketing channels.

Advertising analytics also make it easy for any business —  whether it’s a startup or a Fortune 500 company — to gather insights into their customers’ behavior, enabling marketing teams to build more  effective marketing campaigns strategies directed at the most valuable customers.

These insights can inspire a thoughtful, data-informed approach to decision-making as it relates to the destination, timing, and frequency of ad spend. But it can also help guide creative direction – assisting in the creation of more engaging ads and messaging to drive higher conversion rates.

What are advertising analytics and what are their purposes?

Advertising analytics culminate the practice of measuring, managing, and analyzing advertising data to drive improved advertising effectiveness.

The main purposes of advertising analytics:

  • track and optimize ad performance
  • identify opportunities for further improvement
  • report on results
  • measuring consumer response and incremental impact
  • allocate budgets

Advertising and marketing analytics extend beyond simple click-through rates and impressions to encompass a broad range of data points that can be used to assess ad effectiveness.

These data points can be divided into three main categories:

  1. exposure data
  2. response data
  3. outcome and attribution data

Exposure data includes information such as ad impressions, reach, and frequency.

Response data measures things like click-through rates, time spent on-site, and bounce rates.

Outcome data assesses whether or not an ad achieved its objectives, such as brand awareness, sales or leads generated.

By analyzing all of these data points, advertisers can get a comprehensive view of their ad performance and identify areas for improvement.

That’s advertising analytics in a nutshell. Now let’s crack that nut.

How do advertising analytics work?

Advertising analytics and the marketing optimizations that stem from them are focused on improving advertising effectiveness. This can include analyzing customer behavior, measuring the impact of ad campaigns, and predicting future customer behavior.

To do this, advertising analytics combine a variety of methods, including statistical modeling, machine learning, and optimization.

By understanding how customers interact with ads, businesses can make better decisions about where to allocate their advertising budget and what type of ads to create.

Additionally, by measuring the impact of advertising campaigns, businesses can understand which strategies are working and which need to be pivoted.

By using advertising analytics, businesses can improve the effectiveness of their advertising and make better-informed decisions about their marketing efforts.

What are the benefits of using advertising analytics?

Advertising analytics can help agencies and their clients measure, manage, and analyze advertising performance to optimize campaigns and maximize results. By understanding which ads are performing well and which are not, advertisers can adjust their strategies accordingly to achieve better results.

Additionally, advertising analytics can help identify opportunities for improvement, such as targeting certain demographics or increasing investment in certain channels.

Ultimately, advertising analytics provides a wealth of insights that can be used to improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. As a result, it is an essential tool for any advertiser who wants to maximize the return on their investment.

Who uses advertising analytics and why?

Advertising analytics are used by businesses of all sizes to improve their marketing efforts. It can help businesses to identify which channels are most effective for reaching their target audience, what type of messaging resonates best with consumers, and how to optimize campaigns for maximum ROI.

Advertising analytics can also be used to track the performance of individual ads and identify which ones are generating the most leads or sales.

Ultimately, by using advertising analytics, businesses can ensure that their marketing campaigns are as effective as possible.

In short, advertising analytics is the process of measuring, analyzing, and interpreting data to optimize advertising campaigns. It involves collecting data from multiple sources, including web analytics, social media, surveys, and customer feedback. This data is then analyzed to identify patterns and trends, which can be used to improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

How to get started with advertising analytics

Tracking and developing advertising analytics can be a complex and daunting task for even the most experienced marketer. With so many data points to consider, it can be difficult to know where to start. However, by following a few simple steps, you can quickly get up to speed on the basics of advertising analytics.

First, familiarize yourself with the different types of data that are available. This can include website traffic,  advertising impressions, spend, organic social activity, click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost-per-acquisition (CPA).

Second, identify the key metrics that you want to track. This will vary depending on your specific goals, but common metrics include reach, frequency, and engagement.

Finally, set up a system for tracking and reporting your data. There are a number of different software platforms that offer advertising analytics capabilities, so choose one that meets your needs.

By taking these steps, you can get started with your own advertising analytics program and begin to make more informed decisions about your marketing efforts.

The future of advertising analytics

In the past, advertisers relied on intuition and experience to make decisions about where to allocate their ad spend. However, with the advent of digital advertising, it is now possible to track  the performance of individual ads in real-time, though that doesn’t always tell the full story.. This has given rise to a new field of advertising analytics, which uses data-driven techniques to optimize ad campaigns and improve ROI.

The future of advertising analytics lies in a combination of using machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate the optimization process, while also making measurement more transparent and customizable.

The use of machine learning in advertising analytics is still in its early stages, but it holds tremendous potential for the future of the industry, however, the key to adoption must be transparency and purpose. Black box analytics only cause hesitation and confusion. 

As for Leavened, our approach continues to yield deep insights into the evolution of the marketing measurement technology industry. Our focus is on using the latest innovation to provide rapid, yet robust insights in an easy to use way. We continue to keep our promise of bringing marketing insights at great speed and low cost to our partners throughout the digital and offline marketing world.