How does C3 measure and optimize Upper Funnel Activity?
As much as marketers believe in the power of automated algorithmic buying of display advertising (“programmatic buying”), it’s failed to reliably demonstrate an increase in brand lift and brand demand for two reasons:
a) Most display ads are not seen and digital success is only measured at the bottom of the funnel. When everything ad-related is happening in real-time, it’s easy to lose track of where a sale actually started. In a sales funnel, brand awareness happens at the top, whereas the “lower funnel” is home to the point of sale. While the sale will always be important, big brands need to focus on the “upper funnel” in order to survive the programmatic world of display advertising.
b) Programmatic signals are based in 70%+ wrong data. Every time an ad achieves its conversion goal, a real-time signal is sent to the programmatic platform responsible for that conversion. This provides the exact measurement necessary to duplicate similar targeting techniques, creative, and drive repeated conversions.
Tracking systems responsible for sending these real-time digital signals are only present at the last position of conversion--the bottom of the funnel. This systematic limitation programmatically reinforces automatic buying of display to buy more bottom of funnel inventory (all based on cookies) for which 70% of which is unviewable. Bottom line: buy more last view inventory that's 70% unviewable. Recipe for non-scalable success.
Enter C3 Metrics. Proprietary to C3 Metrics, Upper Funnel Conversions connect real-time viewable impression data to a proprietary upper funnel conversion gateway determining the digital media responsible for driving brand lift and awareness.
Upper Funnel Conversions enable real-time digital signals at the top of the funnel, giving cues to programmatic buying (in the only scalable language that programmatic understands...pixel fires) that can turn the digital funnel around for brands.
When a display ad is actually viewed and the consumer makes their way to the brand’s site for the first time within the Upper Funnel Conversion Window, an Upper Funnel Conversion occurs and programmatic pixel fired.
Extremely different than a “view-through” lower funnel conversion, this is a new customer arriving upon a brand’s site within the Upper Funnel Conversion Window after seeing a display or video ad. The pixel is fired to signal that the programmatic buying system did exactly what the brand wanted: planted new crops.