As marketing and business realities change, measurement becomes critical not just at one phase of a campaign or stage of the funnel—but across the customer journey.

According to a 2022 Gartner study, only 14% of marketers believe that they have a 360-degree view of their customers. The right measurement strategy can help marketers reach relevant audiences, build brand identity and quantify the return on their ad investments. Here’s how measurement can help marketers understand their holistic business impact, from upper-funnel awareness through conversion.

Reach audiences where they are—across media, channels and devices

Media fragmentation has meant the emergence of new channels and the evolution of established channels, giving consumers greater choice for where to spend their time.

According to software provider Upland BlueVenn, people today interact with brands across more than 20 channels. Therefore, marketers can no longer rely on the few channels that may have worked in the past. Instead, they need to explore emerging channels to effectively reach and engage audiences in 2023.

Specifically, advertisers should consider channels that can provide unique reach, in addition to frequency. In a complex media landscape, measurement can help advertisers identify opportunities for incremental audience, especially emerging channels like streaming TV.

As an example, Amazon Ads offers planning solutions like a cross-channel planner and a measurement solution for streaming TV incremental reach to help advertisers quantify unique reach and identify ways to optimize for higher-performing channels that deliver greater reach.

Changes in the ad industry related to addressability make it even harder for marketers to reach the right audiences. In this context especially, measurement must keep pace with the industry.

For instance, Amazon Ads is creating new approaches to addressability, such as model-based and contextual-based ways to reach audiences, including audiences off Amazon. An example of this is Amazon Audiences, which now takes into account a variety of new, anonymous signals to help expand reach to relevant audiences based on an advertiser’s business goals.

Build brand identity in an authentic and relevant way

It’s no secret that consumers’ relationship with brands is evolving. Each interaction that consumers have with a brand influences their perception of and behavior toward that brand across every media channel. Therefore, it is important to ensure that every touchpoint for your brand ladders up to your overall positioning and promise.

Online media has not only changed consumer interactions, but has also transformed their digital shopping journey.

How can brands do that across the often millions of impressions they produce? Effective pre- and post-campaign measurement can play a vital role, allowing you to monitor, optimize and fortify brand equity and loyalty to drive overall brand performance.

Making informed pre-campaign decisions can start you off on the right foot, and can help inform audience, creative and overall brand strategies. As an example, Amazon Ads offers two survey capabilities. Audience Research helps you discover personas that align with your campaign or brand goal, so you can refine your audience strategy, and Creative Testing helps you identify which ads resonate more with your audience, so you can select with the most effective messaging tone and visual style.

Rather than relying on general research, intuition and in-flight optimization, you can use measurement—in the form of direct audience feedback—to deepen your understanding of your audience’s awareness and motivations as well as what content resonates with them.

Further, solutions like brand lift studies can help brands quantify advertising impact on upper- and mid-funnel goals like awareness, preference and purchase intent. Amazon Ads provides Amazon Brand Lift—as well as brand lift studies from third-party services—to deliver insights about how consumers are responding to your ads.

Measure and optimize the total impact performance of your ad investments

Online media has not only changed consumer interactions, but has also transformed their digital shopping journey.

The definition of the “omnichannel shopper” is constantly evolving as consumers bounce across different online and offline touchpoints in their purchase journey. According to a 2021 Shopify study, 54% of shoppers are likely to research a product online and later buy it from a physical store. Further, 94% of the ad-attributed sales related to Amazon Ads streaming TV campaigns were made outside of Amazon stores.

Given the complex media landscape and consumer shopping journeys, measurement is essential to help marketers determine what channels to invest in as well as understand the effectiveness of those investments during and after a campaign.

Media mix solutions are an example of a measurement solution that help at the planning and budget allocation stage. For instance, Amazon Ads provides Media Mix Models (MMM) solutions that can help brands understand the sales reach and impact across marketing channels and publishers, in order to identify the most effective media mix and determine the optimal allocation for each.

During and after campaigns, omnichannel measurement can provide a comprehensive view of performance, so advertisers can maximize return on their ad investments. Amazon Ads provides a solution called Omnichannel Metrics that helps advertisers assess the impact of their ad campaigns on shopping activities across retail outlets—online and offline, both on and off Amazon.

Further, advertisers can conduct their own custom analytics, leveraging solutions like Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). When media channels are disparate, it can be hard to get a view of the whole picture. AMC allows advertisers to bring signals together—including their own first-party signals—to get a more complete picture of ROI on advertising dollars.

Ensuring that you have the right measurement strategy, which includes tactics that encompass the full customer journey, can help marketers successfully drive both short-term and long-lasting impact on their business results.