By Jamie Fellows, Director, Media Planning, Measurement and Data Science

It seems like every day there’s another headline in the advertising trades focused on measurement. It’s not surprising; more than half of marketing leaders report increased pressure to justify the value of their spend, according to Deloitte. And measurement is only going to become more important as marketers navigate economic uncertainties and supply-chain shortages.

But an overreliance on measurement, without a consideration of the cyclical nature of advertising strategy, does a disservice to both advertiser and customer. Measurement results feed into audience insights, which affect media planning. In fact, measurement should be where marketers start—not finish—an ad campaign.

Along those lines, let’s look closer at what marketers should consider before diving into setting up a campaign, even one built with effective measurement in mind. Because the better you plan, the better your outcome is likely to be.

Keep your eyes on the prize

Traditionally, ad campaign planning has prioritized budget over objective. Today, however, savvy brands tend to create a more “scientific” objective, envisioning the ideal campaign outcome and allocating budget based on that plan, flipping the traditional planning practice on its head.

Before you think about how best to analyze the effectiveness of your advertising tactics, you should discuss the primary goal of a campaign and the audiences you want to try to reach, and then look at how much budget that would require. Marketers must establish whether there is adequate reporting in place to understand if they have achieved their desired results, as well as inform the next cycle of advertising strategy.

Smarter planning can help you better understand the opportunity for growth, and you don’t necessarily need a large budget to make a big impact. You just need to be thoughtful about how you plan.

Focus on the future

A common trap some marketers fall prey to is an overreliance on performance marketing. Many marketers are hyper-focused on sales and return on ad spend (ROAS). This is understandable, as ROAS can be an extremely valuable gauge of effectiveness.

Of course, last-touch attribution is important, and marketers should be investing in lower-funnel tactics. In fact, some brands get all they need out of performance marketing. But most marketers should also be thinking about the full customer journey, including which touchpoints along the way are most valuable and how they can connect them. According to McKinsey, campaigns that combine brand and performance elements deliver higher ROAS than campaigns just centered on performance.

It makes sense. When you set out to plan a campaign, you don’t just need to drive purchases; you also want to grow the size of the customer base that’s ready to make a purchase. Marketers must make strategic investments to continue to increase the pipeline of customers who reach the bottom of the marketing funnel and can then be measured by that last click.

By focusing efforts on performance marketing tactics, you may be sacrificing medium- and long-term growth in favor of short-term results. It is also equally important to think about how to allocate budget to upper-funnel efforts.

Work through fragmentation challenges

When it comes to measurement, many brands struggle to tie insights back to campaign planning for future cycles. In fact, only about a third of marketers feel confident that they can gain insights fast enough for meaningful decision-making.

Today, many marketers are working with multiple providers for all the different elements of their campaigns. There are so many options, and they’re not always connected. This means it’s on the advertiser, or sometimes the technology provider, to try to connect the dots and make sense of the results.

Amazon Ads is investing into connecting all these disparate insights for their customers. Yes, fragmentation is, and will continue to be, an issue. But it is possible to work with providers that can help make planning and measurement a more holistic experience. That is key as marketers consider this idea of what to focus on before measurement.

For Amazon Ads,  ad tech is at the heart of everything it does, as it works to drive efficiency for customers and deliver a holistic advertising solution.