Today’s marketers face the challenge of measuring the impact of online impressions, offline activity and purchases. However, through the convergence of advanced data, advertising technology and media, CPG marketers are able to tap into a hybrid of multi-touch attribution (MTA) and cross-channel measurement to gain actionable campaign insights, even for lower price point, high-frequency consumer purchases. Marketers who take advantage of these unique in-flight optimization opportunities may be able to improve their return on advertising spend by 80%, according to “Pinpointing Campaign Attribution Through Multiple Touchpoints: A View into MTA for CPG Brands,” a report presented by IRI, Chicago.

The MTA model takes a bottom-up, granular, user-centric approach and combines the touchpoints longitudinally, giving marketers more real-time and long-term optimization potential. Unfortunately, given the unique dynamics of CPG, there is no single industry solution that can merge online and offline touchpoints into one cohesive, rapid and actionable MTA model. IRI outlines a unique and approachable solve by offering an attribution model that resembles MTA with features of marketing mix combined with a more granular cross-channel lift solution.

“Despite becoming an increased focus of marketers, no single industry solution has been able to accurately attribute advertising and marketing spend for CPG brands,” says Jennifer Pelino, senior vice president of omnichannel media for the IRI Media Center of Excellence. “IRI’s unique approach helps marketers effectively navigate the spider web of touchpoints at a granular level — in and out of offline and online activity — to give credit where credit is due. By leveraging this improved understanding, marketers are able to make in-flight optimization decisions based on sales impact within weeks of a campaign launch and dramatically improve their return on advertising spend.”

IRI’s cross-channel lift leverages existing IRI products to integrate MTA features and provide metrics and insights to help inform on a holistic and tactical campaign level. IRI’s offline sales data is composed of 350 million loyalty cards, which translates into 107 million individual households.

“Marketers are coming under increasing pressure to justify marketing spend, and MTA attribution models have traditionally been expensive, making their use with many lower-priced CPG products less worthwhile,” says Vijoy Gopalakrishnan, senior vice president of product development, IRI Media Center of Excellence. “IRI’s hybrid attribution model has made it possible to provide deep insights at significantly less time and cost investment, and with more offline sales data than most MTA solutions have available.”