What is Unified Analytics' Impact? Savings, Revenue Growth, and More
If there's one steady mantra for modern marketing, it's about the need for complete and holistic measurement: a unified view of the customer that captures all of their interactions with the brand and gives marketers an unambiguous source of truth to guide their marketing strategy.
But where's the hard proof? Can it be done, and if so, is it worth the investment? Self-published case studies are certainly helpful, directionally, but Neustar wanted an independent and objective third-party to actually quantify the value of our Unified Analytics solution.
"The Total Economic Impact™ of Neustar Unified Analytics: Cost Savings and Business Benefits Enabled by Unified Analytics," a Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ Study commissioned by Neustar, did just that.
The striking results revealed this: Companies that invest in the Neustar Unified Analytics solution can see it pay for itself in under six months and achieve a 458% return on that investment within three years. More importantly, the Forrester analysis shows exactly where those benefits come from.
To conduct the study, Neustar provided Forrester Consulting the contact details of four of our existing clients across four key industries (retail, automotive, wireless, and financial services). Forrester Consulting then interviewed these decision-makers and measured the impact of unified analytics on their organizations. We didn't have a hand in the analysis beyond that initial contact.
What is Neustar Unified Analytics?
Before we dig in, let's go over what Neustar Unified Analytics is: It's a cohesive set of real-time data, tools, and services -- grounded in our leading, privacy-friendly identity -- that makes it possible for marketers to capture all customer interactions in a single place and produce reliable long-term and short-term models for all marketing use cases: from segmentation to budget allocation, from targeting to personalization. It combines the best of both marketing-mix modeling (MMM) and multi-touch attribution (MTA), two marketing solutions that have traditionally been at odds with one another, and it does so across all popular advertising channels, online and offline, including TV and walled gardens.
Here are some key benefits revealed in the study.
Benefit #1: Better targeting drives 30% of the value of Unified Analytics
When brands first express interest in data-driven marketing, the impetus is often audience targeting. There's nothing more frustrating than to see precious ad dollars wasted on the wrong prospects, on the wrong channels, or at the wrong time.
With unified analytics, marketers have all relevant consumer data in one place—from demographics to interests, from prior conversions to new media touchpoints across all channels. It's a source of truth they can use to pinpoint what users and consumer segments are likely to be most receptive to advertising, and what channels and ad formats are likely to be most effective.
A leader of consumer insights at a major wireless company had this to say during the Forrester interviews:
“Initially, our visibility to Facebook advertising was limited to Facebook ads that led to someone going to our website. But there could be people who may see our Facebook ads, not visit the website, and go on to convert in the store. We were completely missing that piece. By doing this full integration, we now have a much more comprehensive view of how our social media advertising is working.”
In the Forrester analysis, direct improvements in targeting accounted for 30% of the value brought in by unified analytics. In other words, better targeting alone was enough to justify the investment.
Benefit #2: Frequency capping drives 16% of the value of Unified Analytics
Who hasn't seen the same ad over and over again and thought about throwing the remote at the TV screen? Brands don't set out to exasperate their customers, of course, but without a unified customer data solution in place, they often don't have a clear idea of how their media buys play out, and no mechanism to adjust course along the way.
When she started using Neustar Unified Analytics, a senior manager of marketing analytics at a major retailer in the study realized her company had five departments trying to talk to the same customers at the same time, and without any internal coordination. The marketing department at a major automaker found out they were hitting the same customers 200 to 300 times in a 10-day period. Beyond throwing money out the window, it really turns people off to your brand.
In the Forrester analysis, 16% of the value from Unified Analytics came from frequency capping. Some level of frequency is judicious, naturally, and brands that use unified marketing measurement solutions can reduce waste, focus on optimizing that frequency and, ultimately, drive better experiences. The benefit of better frequency capping should not be underestimated. As privacy concerns mount and the loss of cookies becomes a reality, the value your marketing delivers to consumers should be clear and considered.
Benefit #3: Partner productivity drives 54% of the value of Unified Analytics
The bulk of the value (54%) of a unified marketing measurement solution comes from productivity improvements from the company's media partners. With a centralized customer data and campaign management solution in place, marketers can measure how well their media buyers are performing using comparable metrics. That's a game-changer. Today's marketing ecosystem is very complex, and marketers cannot make the most of the opportunities in front of them without the expertise of specialized agencies. But that doesn't mean those agencies should get a pass on performance measurement.
One of the interviewees in the study pointed out that once they deployed Neustar Unified Analytics, “It was clear as day which partners we needed to disinvest from, which we needed to monitor and reevaluate, which we needed to test and scale with, and which were hitting the sweet spot.”
For a marketing department, the savings that come from pruning a partner list down to the most effective partners can be substantial, not just in terms of CPM gains, but also in all the time and resources spent managing unproductive relationships.
More benefits beyond cost savings
Directly quantifiable cost savings related to improvements in targeting, frequency capping, and partner productivity add up to a 458% return on investment, which is nothing to sneeze at. But the benefits of Neustar Unified Analytics go well beyond cost savings.
Forrester Consulting estimates that a composite organization with a 9% marketing contribution to sales could see that contribution climb to 12% within two years of using the Neustar Unified Analytics solution, and to 15% within three years. Take a look at your revenue for the past quarter and do a quick calculation in your head. That’s huge.
Another benefit of unified analytics is that it provides marketers with a solid basis to plan for growth in the long run. It's not just a tactical advantage used to optimize campaigns at the moment, but a catalyst for brand-building efforts at the top of the funnel too.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, unified analytics gives all departments at the company a way to align resources around the customer experience, a common language to talk about performance, and a real shot at breaking down the traditional silos between marketing, IT, finance, and decision-makers in the C-suite. As one marketing effectiveness manager for a multinational automaker in the study pointed out after deploying Neustar Unified Analytics, "We shifted our dollars around, saved a lot of money, and there was no deterioration in performance. In fact, performance went up, and we got a lot of credibility as a team.”
Get your copy of The Total Economic Impact™ of Neustar Unified Analytics: Cost Savings and Business Benefits Enabled by Unified Analytics, a Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ Study commissioned by Neustar, now.
Contact us to find out how Neustar Unified Analytics can benefit your organization.
