Emerging channels represent an exciting opportunity for brands to get in at the ground floor and eclipse competitors—sometimes before they’re even on the platform. But measuring the efficacy of these fledgling platforms can be challenging. That’s where our marketing measurement experts come in.

Read on to learn how to set up an effective marketing measurement methodology for emerging channels like TikTok, Threads, and Lemon8.

Get to Know the Channel 

Testing into a new channel? Work with your agency team to understand how this platform fits into the existing media landscape and any potential advantages you might gain by including it in your media channel mix. 

Strong agency partners will evaluate the potential advantages of advertising on a new platform and how it can complement your existing strategy. At Ovative, our marketing measurement experts approach an emerging platform by digging into its unique attributes and audience demographics, how long it will take to measure the value of the channel, and the challenges in getting a campaign up and running. A comprehensive market analysis will provide valuable insights to inform your strategy. 

Conduct additional research on how this channel will integrate into your current media channel mix and measurement strategy. If you’re testing into Threads, for example, consider ways to incorporate it into your current measurement strategy for platforms like Instagram. The new platform’s potential for cross-channel integration will ultimately illuminate its impact on your overall marketing goals. 

Understand Its Data Capabilities

Next, it’s crucial to assess the marketing measurement capabilities of the emerging channel. Your new platform’s data ecosystem informs targeting, personalization, and the ability to measure campaign effectiveness. For example:

• Does your channel allow for seamless integration of first-party data?
• Have you investigated the availability of third-party measurement partners and their capabilities?
• Have you identified the key marketing metrics you’ll measure towards?

Using a holistic measurement metric like Ovative’s Enterprise Marketing Return (EMR) will allow you to understand the full revenue and customer impact of this new emerging channel on your overall business.

Assess Your Marketing Tech

Once you’ve assessed the data capabilities of the emerging channel, it’s time to evaluate your marketing tech stack. Here are three questions you can ask to make the most of your marketing tech stack for your new platform: 

1. Who is invested in our marketing? How might our tech stack help us reach our company’s business goals? 
2. Are there any crucial gaps in our analytics, or are we missing any key insights?
3. How can we utilize our marketing tech stack proactively rather than reactively? 

Ovative’s unified marketing measurement tool, Map, provides the most comprehensive view of your marketing program, unlocking incremental revenue and customer potential. This tool is uniquely equipped to handle the features and requirements of an emerging channel, offering efficient campaign management and seamless integration. 

Don’t Skip Out on Testing

Testing is a fundamental aspect of any successful advertising strategy. Before running a larger campaign on a new platform, we recommend outlining a comprehensive plan for testing. Here’s how you can get started: 

• Create a clear goal and hypothesis to ensure you are staying on target. 
• Take notes! Your findings throughout the process may be critical in explaining outcomes. 
• Don’t work alone. Partner with other experts to fill in your knowledge gaps when issues arise. 

Evaluate Your Learnings

After conducting tests on a new channel, the work continues. Take the time to delve deep into the performance data. Analyze how your test media performed against KPIs like click-through rates, conversion rates, or EMR. Furthermore, assess how customer pathing and acquisition have been impacted.  

Using a holistic metric like EMR allows you to compare emerging channel test results with results from your tried-and-true channels. It also enables you to measure bottom-line revenue and customer implications. This evaluation phase is critical for gaining actionable insights to inform your ongoing strategy. 

What’s Next? Set Up a Measurement Approach with Ovative

Emerging channels like TikTok, Threads, and Lemon8 present exciting opportunities for testing new ad types, but jumping onto the latest platform without a plan isn’t the way to win against competitors.  

Ovative’s media and measurement experts use Map and EMR to power a top-notch measurement approach. We leverage the framework of successful channel, subchannel, and tactic measurement to apply proven strategies to emerging platforms and drive efficient results.

Planning to make the jump to a new channel? Reach out to learn how we can help you plan, execute, test, and optimize your efforts.