Multi-touch attribution can help identify the role that broadcast advertising plays in the overall marketing mix by analyzing the customer journey and the touchpoints that lead to a conversion.

To specifically identify the role of broadcast advertising, a multi-touch attribution (MTA) model typically assigns a specific weight or credit to each touchpoint in the customer journey, based on how much influence it had on the final conversion.

For example, if a consumer watched a TV ad for a product, then clicked on a social media ad, and finally purchased a Google search ad, an MTA model could assign a certain percentage of credit to each touchpoint.

The model might give 30% credit to the TV ad, 20% credit to the social media ad, and 50% credit to the Google search ad, based on the data and analysis of how each touchpoint contributed to the conversion.

By using this type of MTA model, an advertiser can gain insights into the impact of their broadcast advertising efforts and adjust their advertising strategy accordingly. For example, they may decide to increase their investment in TV or radio advertising if the data shows that it has a significant impact on the customer journey and leads to more conversions, or they may decide to adjust the timing or frequency of their TV or radio ads to maximize their impact.

Broadcast Radio and Television Attribution

Linear TV or broadcast/satellite radio advertising can be included in MTA models right alongside other channels. Marketers can view reports for web lift and conversion contribution, evaluate A/B creative tests, and compare programming formats, dayparts, days of the week, and more.

At LeadsRx, marketing attribution capabilities for radio and television are some of the most advanced in the industry. With thousands of advertisers using LeadsRx to make optimizations on media buys and ad creatives, marketers receive insights that include:

• A flexible attribution window that allows marketers to change the period of attribution credit from seconds to hours at the individual spot level
• Geofencing of visitors for local advertising; burst national spots into Nielsen DMA automatically
• Applying channel filters to remove or include the impact of other marketing programs
• Monitoring decay curves to see how website traffic changes overall aggregated spots
• Arbitration of station overlap with split credit or by using decay curves, impressions, or both

Read the blog “TV and Radio Attribution: Vital Channels When Measuring Marketing Effectiveness” for more on how MTA works for measuring broadcast advertising’s contribution to the marketing mix.

As the post states, the measurement of broadcast channels is more than just measuring web lift. Impartial data and analysis lets marketers:

• Gain a complete picture of all their marketing campaigns – and how they work together to drive conversions
• See how radio works with other channels, such as digital, to convert prospects into buyers
• Calculate ROAS – because now the costs and revenue values are known across all channels, and these define performance
• Determine which radio ads, stations, creative, dayparts, and other segments are driving the greatest return – not on “lift” but on revenue.

These benefits aren’t realized, however, when using those one-channel-only measurement “point” solutions. Measurement in a vacuum is not effective, especially for advertisers promoting across multiple channels. They need to be measured in tandem.

Broadcast Experts Share Power of Attribution

In 2022, Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer at Cumulus Media and Westwood One, shared his take on the audio industry, specifically the move over the last seven years or so to better measure the medium’s effectiveness. Here’s an excerpt, but listen to the full podcast episode as Bouvard is a longtime respected expert in the field.

“What we have found and a lot of other much smarter people have found who specialize in marketing effectiveness is the single most significant driver to sales effect is not media, it’s creative,” Pierre says. “50% to 70% of the results of your campaign have to do with the creative, and so what attribution has allowed us to do is turn the focus away from media and a lot of the what I would call very small levers (you know like how long is the ad and when do I run it) to the big lever of creative and say which creative asset is really driving search and site traffic for me.”

Bouvard authored a blog post in February 2023 about “the golden age of audio measurement and attribution.” Some takeaways he listed from a presentation he was a part of include:

• AM/FM radio is the media plan reach accelerator. Take it from P&G, Progressive, Indeed, CDW, and many others. Audio elevates the media plan with incremental reach.
• Audio impacts the entire purchase funnel, from brand lift to sales effect.
• AM/FM radio sales effects are surprisingly strong and the return on advertising spend is excellent.
• Audio’s ability to drive search and site traffic is compelling.
• Audio punches above its weight. The degree of brand lift and sales effect is greater than the audio’s share of the media plan.

One case study brought up in the presentation said, “For every $1 spent on AM/FM radio, the men’s personal care brand saw $1.23 in return on advertising spend among target male consumers exposed to the campaign. Even more significant, for every $1 invested in AM/FM radio, the parent brand saw an $11.96 in return on advertising spend across all households.” Now that’s a return on ad spend (ROAS).

Some more key points:

• For every dollar invested in AM/FM radio advertising, the incremental sales generated far exceeds the investment.
• For every dollar of AM/FM radio ads, fast food (sic) restaurants generate $3 of incremental sales.
• Twelve dollars of incremental home improvement sales are generated by a dollar of AM/FM radio ads.
• A dollar of AM/FM radio ads for auto aftermarket retailers generates $21 of incremental sales.

And don’t miss another podcast featuring guest Brent Lightfoot, Vice President Research at iHeart Media, as he discusses exactly how to broadcast attribution is working in the modern marketing landscape.

Check out this case study where a broadcast provider helped a roofing company garner impressive marketing results, including a 307% website traffic increase and a 28% broadcast lift of total traffic.

Schedule a demo today to see how multi-touch attribution, customer journey analytics, and insights from these solutions can shape your success in marketing.