Published: 8/27/2024
Ira Citron
Business Development Director, Dynata
For the past decade plus, the advertising industry has experienced a “big data” renaissance that has changed the landscape for audience measurement. As these big data sets reshape the industry, one space where the scale of big data has an obvious and advancing impact, though still lags behind, is at the local level.
Traditionally, advertising strategies at the local level focused on broad demographic and geographic targeting, centered around Designated Market Areas (DMAs). However, the latest advancements are shifting this paradigm. Advertisers now have access to their own granular first-, and third-party data, at a great enough scale, that allows for hyper-local targeting. Additionally, as the industry moves away from linear TV and into addressable TV and CTV, hyper–local advertising has flourished.
And, with 3 months to go before one of the biggest elections in US history, this hyper local trend is expected to continue, with projections indicating CTV political ad spend set to reach $1.8 billion for the 2024 election cycle. (campaignlive.com). Political messaging is made for local targeting, whether it be at the state, congressional or even school board level. And with linear TV and CTV going addressable, these hyper local initiatives can reach consumers with long form creative messages, on the biggest screen in the house. In fact, political ad spend on CTV/digital is expected to jump 156% over the last presidential election (The current).
Ultimately, whether political or otherwise, and while counterintuitive, a good local strategy is actually about the balance and complimentary nature between national, regional (DMA) and hyperlocal tactics.
For example, Automotive and QSR advertisers run both national and local campaigns with different KPIs. A national awareness campaign will drive general brand interest, while a Regional DMA strategy will identify points of sale, and a hyperlocal promotion will target consumers who are already engaged down funnel and ready to buy.
All that said, in order for local advertising to flourish, particularly on addressable TV and CTV, whether for a political candidate or a brand, better attribution and outcomes measurement is key.
Outcomes measurement & Ad Effectiveness at the local level
Long has local measurement lacked the scale, and therefore feasibility, that national attribution studies have had. Even as the age of big data sets has flourished, the necessary scale to measure ad effectiveness locally has mostly eluded the industry.
At its core, advertising outcomes measurement represents the deterministic test and control data at the intersection of a fairly complicated Venn diagram:
- The first few circles represent directly observable platforms. Advertisers need to see how the behaviors of those consumers exposed to their TV AND digital campaigns differ from those exposed to just TV, just digital, or neither. The more platforms, the smaller that exposure overlap becomes.
- The next circle represents the niche 1st and 3rd party targeting that is now table stakes for the industry.
- The next circle represents the desired outcome. This can be: trackable website visits, personally identifiable sales, surveyable panelists for voting behavior, etc.
- The simple issue with local attribution…To then apply a final circle to this Venn diagram, representing a local geography, has an exponential negative effect on feasibility.
This issue has led those involved with measuring local ad effectiveness and attribution to make sacrifices. i.e. forgo the cross-platform nature of the test, abandon niche and first party targets for A18+, or rely on more expensive and imperfect local testing means like match market A/B testing. This practice of finding two similar markets can be flawed, as every community fundamentally behaves differently. There is no better example than the hyper local elephant (or donkey) in the room…the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
With the run up to the presidential election, Dynata has been hard at work to develop the means to measure brand lift at a hyper local level. The key is scale. How can we acutely attack each of the Venn diagram circles mentioned above to improve said scale:
- Increase digital scale by enabling direct integrations and negating the messiness, churn and signal loss that comes with tagging.
- Increase linear TV scale by bringing on additional and complimentary MVPD and ACR partners.
- Finally, increase the scale of surveyable panelists by bringing in Dynata’s phone survey team alongside those recruited digitally.
All of these efforts have enabled Dynata, and other measurement providers, to help close the gap between local and national ad measurement capabilities just in time for an election season with billions being spent locally.