Measuring ROI Beyond the Last Ad

Winners and losers in the purchase funnel are different when viewed through a new lense.
Consumers spend an average of 26.5 hours a month online¹ with the internet serving as a primary source for news, entertainment, research, connecting with friends and family, and, of course, shopping. Yet in the face of this mass consumer migration, the online advertising industry continues to struggle to shed its direct response reputa­tion with marketers.

For many, measuring the return on investment (ROI) for online campaigns has revealed both positive and negative outcomes. Although real-time performance metrics for online cam­paigns deliver insight at unprecedented levels of granularity, those same reporting systems fail to capture the complexity of the campaigns. The reliance on "last ad" conversion attribution often leaves publishers and ad networks struggling to prove their value to advertisers simply due to the nature of their site, not because of the quality of their audiences or ability to target. A clear bias emerges toward search and affiliate sites, with sites that offer research and information failing to get the credit they deserve in the overall purchase funnel.

In this study, Microsoft Advertising Institute examines the bias created by the "last ad" model and reveals sites that delivered reach and engagement to converters, yet did not receive applicable credit—sites that have the most to gain from new conversion attribution paradigms like "Engagement Mapping." Introduced by Microsoft Advertising Institute, Engagement Mapping is an innovative reporting model that counts every customer touchpoint (not just the last) and enables digital marketers to make more effective, more relevant decisions.