Innovative view attribution uncovers the real impact of platforms like Pinterest
In a pioneering pilot project, Pinterest and Exactag have tested an innovative approach that challenges traditional modeling approaches and emphasizes the importance of considering every form of engagement, especially non-click interactions such as views.
Introducing Exactag's pioneering "Full View Impact Modeler"
In today’s digital marketing world, accurately measuring the impact of upper-funnel and awareness strategies, especially on visually-focused platforms like Pinterest, poses a unique challenge for brands.
- Traditional metrics that focus on click-based attribution do not take into account the significant impact of less click-focused content. This oversight is especially critical for brands where visual engagement is crucial in driving consumer behavior.
- Many modeling and testing approaches do not allow advertisers to analyze on a granular level and report on short notice.
- Some publisher solutions for view measurement lead to biased results as their methods have been designed for their own channels and not for neutral comparison of channels and publishers.
Recognizing these gaps, Exactag sought to enhance the measurement capabilities of its platform to provide a more comprehensive view of how visual engagement translates into conversions by introducing the innovative feature “Full View Impact Modeler”, which allows for measuring views even in a cookieless era.
Testing the new feature in pilot projects with leading brands
Following the development of its new feature, Exactag started an intensive pilot phase to test the feature in daily operations and gather feedback from advertisers, agencies, and publishers.
A diverse range of retail brands participated in the pilot project, particularly those utilizing social media platforms as a key marketing channel. Among publishers, Pinterest played a very proactive role in this phase, contributing insightful feedback and additional aggregated data to assess the measurement approach.
Learnings and results from the pilot project
The pilot project demonstrated compelling outcomes, underscoring the limitation of relying solely on traditional measurement approaches.
- A significant learning refers to the visually-focussed platform such as Pinterest. Compared to click-based attribution Pinterest’s results increased on average by 67%. That means that Pinterest views lead to a rise of attributed conversions by 67% on the publisher level. Within the pilot, Pinterest outperformed other platforms in achieving higher conversion uplifts through Full View Impact, showcasing its effectiveness as a visual engagement channel. (Source: Exactag internal data, DE, 2022-2023)
- Long-term Brand lift test basically matched and confirmed first insights generated from Exactag’s analysis.
- Results on campaign-level and publisher-level revealed clear performance differences allowing advertisers to shift and optimize budgets.
Meanwhile, more than 15 Exactag and Pinterest mutual customers have launched Full View Impact, more than 35 brands integrated the new algorithm to their measurement framework.
The underlying method of the "Full View Impact Modeler"
The new feature is based on the Bayesian Structural Time Series (BSTS) method. BSTS emphasizes incrementality and causality, which are critical for identifying the actual impact of ad impressions on a time series of user actions. The chosen configuration comes with even more benefits, i.e.:
- Adstock effects are taken into account, which means considering a potential delay between ad impressions and user actions.
- The impact is modeled individually for each campaign and considers that views of one campaign might have different impacts on different user actions in different channels.
As the new feature works as an integrated part of the Exactag platform, users receive a single and integrated view of data and results. Nevertheless, users can differentiate results by clicks and views and split results by all relevant dimensions, from campaign to publisher and channel. Thus, the new approach allows for more granular and short-term reporting, providing marketers with more insights than typical models or tests.
Future implications
Reflecting on the pilot project, we want to put the focus on the implications:
- The tested approach serves as a wake-up call for advertisers to abandon outdated or siloed measurement approaches.
- View modeling is a perfect way to quantify impacts advertisers could only model with delay in lift studies.
- Even in our cookieless era, our specialized algorithms can extract valuable insights from today’s view data, while partnerships between publishers and measurement partners guarantee data quality and effective feature development.
The conducted project offers a blueprint for the future, where every facet of consumer engagement is measured, understood, and valued, from clicks to views.
With measurement challenges escalating due to privacy regulations and technical limitations, impeding a unified view of advertising effects, we recommend that advertisers start building their ‘Measurement System of Truth.’
The Exactag platform lets advertisers base their marketing on first-party data collection with the best data available and algorithms tailored for today’s heterogeneous landscape.
Schedule a free online Discovery Call with our experts. Get to know our solution and understand how you can benefit from our features.
As a visual platform we know about the power of an image and the value of a view. It's great to see innovative MTA solutions like Exactag's Full View Impact Modeler take this into account and reduce the gap between platform-owned metrics and 3P attribution solutions."
About Pinterest
Pinterest is the visual inspiration platform where people come to search, save, and shop the best ideas in the world for all of life’s moments. Whether it’s planning an outfit, trying a new beauty ritual, renovating a home, or discovering a new recipe, Pinterest is the best place to confidently go from inspiration to action. Headquartered in San Francisco, Pinterest launched in 2010 and has 498 million monthly active users worldwide. Available on iOS and Android, and at pinterest.com.
