In many organisations, it is not uncommon for media buying and customer experience (CX) to be seen as responsibilities for two different teams.
Linked with customer acquisition, media buying will typically fall into the realm of marketing, while the management of these customers, once acquired, falls into the realm of a product manager.
This disconnect between media buying and CX means that businesses are now struggling to quantify the quality of a customer acquisition, according to Merkle’ VP Data Transformation Lionel Kho.
“As media buying is a marketing function, media spend is measured and optimised towards the objective of improving acquisition metrics,” Kho told B&T.
“However, without common customer-level success metrics, this can create a strategic disconnect in the value of the customer acquired, and the desired ideal value of a ‘quality customer’ sought in portfolio management.”
For Kho, bringing together the function of media buying and CX comes down to choosing the right metrics.
“Whilst brands sell product, they ultimately sell them to customers. Therefore, a common set of customer level success metrics is required across business functions,” he said.
“This provides a basis on which to measure the value of new customer acquisitions, informing strategic planning decisions made by marketers and media buyers, and product and portfolio managers alike.”
With marketers increasingly focused on experience-based marketing, Kho advocates for customer-level success metrics, to identify journey pain points and meaningfully personalise experiences.
“Customer Lifetime Value is increasing becoming a favoured measure of success,” he said.
“By understanding which customer cohorts contribute the greatest value in portfolio management, marketers can look to optimise their media spend for these cohorts, attracting more high-quality acquisitions which in turn give product and portfolio managers the best opportunity to increase brand and product engagement.”
Measuring the value of new customer acquisitions will also better inform the decisions of marketers and media buyers moving forward, Kho said.
