Your Attribution Model Is Wrong, and It’s Costing You – TikTok, TV & What’s Really Driving Customer Acquisition

‘Search is the only customer acquisition channel that works.’

‘TikTok can’t win us new customers.’

‘TV isn’t worth media investment throughout the funnel.’

Some marketing professionals are relying on lazy, untested beliefs from the past. The best CMOs are acting on new data that shows which channels are delivering across the buyer’s journey. 

 

What’s Missing from Your Marketing Strategy: Driving Customer Acquisition From Discovery to Decision

Every CMO knows current attribution modelling can’t show the full picture across an increasingly complex customer journey, even with a MarTech stack averaging 90 different tools. Overwhelmed marketing teams are turning away from experimentation and basing decisions on more simplistic metrics, lacking understanding of the true impact of their media investment. This mistake is costing marketers and their businesses. Almost 75% of users discover new brands through one marketing channel, but escape the clutches of tunnel-vision measurement to research further and convert across other channels.

Steve Lockwood, TikTok’s Head of Measurement for Europe & Israel believes many brands are still spending half of their revenue on pay-per-click advertising, mostly to no return. Lockwood advises, ‘If any part of the journey is interrupted, it diminishes the likelihood that conversion is going to get made. If you think about any scenario where there’s an outcome that is preceded by a series of actions, it’s virtually impossible to think of an outcome that was exclusively driven by the latest prior event.’

Because social media users are immersed in-stream, last-click attribution wrongly undervalues the role of multiple channels in the purchase process. Consumers who discover products whilst engaged in a viewing experience won’t click to leave the platform immediately, but will research the product after finishing their session. Last-touch can’t capture the full buying process and wrongly associates revenue with search or other display/non-video ads, leaving marketers allocating spend in the wrong places and perplexed when their tactics don’t deliver.

Savvy CMOs are acquiring customers through three advertising channels in particular – here’s how.

 

Which Popular Channel Delivers the Best Return on Ad Spend and Customer Acquisition?

 

• TikTok

Why It Works: Home to 1 billion users, TikTok presents an underutilised opportunity to reach and engage audiences across the funnel. Recent research reveals nearly 80% of all conversions attributed to TikTok by users themselves were missed by last-click attribution models. The world’s favourite time thief can lay claim to:

• Unique connection with younger audiences – with up to 60% of unique reach across 18-24-year-olds, and 68% of UK Gen Z users engaging with TikTok daily – the most difficult (and increasingly valuable) segment to engage 
• Fastest growth across social media platforms, surpassing the user base of Facebook and Instagram in a shorter time frame.

TikTok is solving marketers’ greatest challenges by introducing multiple new features that aid consumers in their purchase journeys and in turn aid brands in uncovering the data behind these journeys. Charlotte Skornik, TikTok’s Head of Client Measurement UK, says, ‘Advertisers now know they need to have TikTok in their media plan, but the main question they have is “Show me that TikTok can drive my business outcomes”.’ 

 

The Proof: Brand new consumer data from ViewersLogic proves the most common attribution misconceptions false. In July 2024, Channel 4 expected to lose viewers and see its average viewing time drop significantly in response to BBC and ITV screenings of the event of the year, the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship. In an effort to mitigate the impact of the Euros, the public broadcaster deployed a targeted TikTok advertising campaign.

TikTok’s new tool directs audiences to highly focused content, which for tv shows and films includes cast listings, plot synopses and creator content. Users discover where to watch shows on streaming services. Spotlight provides an enhanced experience for users and moves consumers further down the purchase funnel.

Post-exposure to the TikTok campaign, people watched 44% more C4 BVOD than they would have without the campaign. Fellow UK TV channel ITVX experienced similar success, enjoying a 32% increase in average daily viewing time after audiences were exposed to their own dedicated TikTok advertising campaign.

TikTok goes beyond awareness & engagement through the buying process to deliver new customers. The Coca‑Cola Company invested in TikTok to both increase awareness and deliver an incremental lift in sales through their advertising campaigns.

TikTok’s data analytics approach enabled The Coca-Cola Company to better understand both in-person and online purchasing decisions after buyers were exposed to TikTok advertising. The link between online visits and offline sales revealed the actual incremental value of advertisements, which achieved:

• 5 million users reached
• 3.39% creator content engagement rate with high engagement across content
• 7.88% lift in spend for the brand
• €11.37 ROAS

• Specific links between dedicated campaigns and products, identifying opportunities to further optimise advertising campaigns. 

 

 

• TV 

Why It Works: Although social media dominates the consciousness of consumers and marketers alike, television remains undeniably powerful for customer acquisition. The unique reach of TV surpasses all other forms of media, attracting and engaging millions daily. Its place in the lives of audiences is unmatched, as consumers consider their living room screens their most trustworthy channel. The amplification effect encourages audiences to engage with other channels after viewing, with TV driving consumers further down the purchasing funnel.

It’s no wonder that TV directly influences buyer decisions:

• TV is responsible for 71% of total advertising-generated profit at an average three-year ROI of £4.20 per £1 spent: the highest ROI of any media
• The channel also delivers the highest short-term ROI of any media at 62% of all advertising-generated profit at £1.73 per £1 spent
• Television presents the lowest risk ad investment option with the highest likelihood of profit return: 70% likelihood over three to six months and 86% over three years.

 

The Proof: In June 2024, ITV’s self-service advertising platform PlanetV hit £1billion in bookings since launching in 2021. Second only to Google, Planet V is the UK’s largest premium video  advertiser. In the words of Kelly Williams, Managing Director at ITV Commercial: ‘Planet V has been a step change in the industry and has fundamentally changed how we engage with advertisers digitally.’ 

UK health and beauty retailer Boots harnessed ITV to drive new razor brand sales in active shopper audiences. ITV’s advertising platform answered the call for a longer form, higher attention alternative to social video. Boots’ active female buyer audience aged 18-44 were identified, analysed and targeted with ITVX ads across key show genres, delivering the following results:

• 230,000 total customers reached
• 18% Conversion Lift for female shoppers in the target age group.

 

 

• Instagram 

 

Why It Works: With 200 million accounts across the world viewing Instagram Explore daily, and 50% of all accounts using the page every month, Meta’s photo and video sharing app is a haven for creators and small businesses. Its latest updates present Instagram as an ideal choice for larger businesses to directly capture new customers. 

83% of users discover new products through the highly personalised Instagram Explore. Brands can now display ads directly within the Explore grid with clickable call-to-actions, to prioritise user experience whilst getting the right message out at the right time. Another recent update enables brands to create interactive AR ads displayed across both feeds and Stories. 

 

The Proof: Instant coffee leader NESCAFÉ turned to Instagram to improve DTC online sales for Dolce Gusto coffee machines during the Christmas season. NESCAFÉ launched a two-phase campaign with Instagram’s Advantage+ catalogue ads, which automatically show relevant offerings based on audience interests and intent, with the support of the Meta Conversions API which directly connects marketing data to optimise ads.

After conducting an A/B test, conversion lift study and brand lift analysis across the holiday year-end, NESCAFÉ reported higher incremental results from the Advantage+ catalogue ads including:

• 7% incremental lift 
• 16% incremental lift in initiate checkout events
• 38% incremental lift in add-to-cart events.

 

Find What Works Faster –  Measure Your ROAS & Media Spend ROI with ViewersLogic

Near real-time data empowers CMOs to accurately and constantly monitor all marketing activities across channels and time periods. ViewersLogic uncovered hidden successes from  a recent TikTok campaign run by online travel platform Booking.com. The data demonstrated that exposure to TikTok ads increased website visits by 9.8%, translating to 428,000 visits, enabling Booking.com to acquire customers who might otherwise have been missed.

Get full visibility of your funnel – see where your ads are really driving customer acquisition.

 

4 Ways CMOs Can Demonstrate the Impact of Media Investment on Customer Acquisition

 

Marketing leaders know that all the data in the world is only as useful as the actions it inspires. CMOs can convince the C-Suite of advertising’s value to customer acquisition (and in good time even convince the CFO to increase the budget!) with four powerful tactics.

• Address the C-Suite’s Biggest Concerns – TikTok’s Charlotte Skornik advises that stakeholders, ‘might have questions and will probably not understand your innovation straight away. When a new situation or new ideas arise, the unknown & uncertainty make people uncomfortable, so it’s all about taking stakeholders on that journey with you.’ Proactive CMOs who enter the Boardroom with a checklist of their C-Suite’s most likely concerns and objections, and the answers to these prepared in advance, are best equipped to start an honest, open and productive dialogue with their Executive team.
• Invest Early to Guarantee Purchase – Whilst we all know best practice is a balance between the long and the short, most teams are not allocating sufficient spend at the top of the funnel. CMOs who play the long game by investing in the awareness stage will not only see higher conversions and purchases, but also discover more of what works and what doesn’t at every part of the journey. The proven impact of TikTok advertising campaigns on Booking.com’s website visits and Channel 4 and ITV viewing times evidence the value of prioritising early investment, and the platform’s analytics can prove without doubt the return of longer-term tactics.
• Be Bold from the Beginning – Marketing leaders who listen to their Boards and take their feedback to the testing phase can immediately involve Executives at the heart of their customer acquisition strategy. Be daring with messaging, creative and delivery, test multiple approaches, and listen to what your audience and your data are telling you. 

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, believes, ‘Too often, I think people are interested in reach for reach’s sake. But reach is really a means to an end. You also need to be clear about who you want to show up as, or what part of yourself you want to share. You need to find the overlap of what kind of content you can create that helps you achieve that business objective, is true to yourself, and people are going to find engaging. If you go too far to one direction or the other, then it’s not going to work for you. The key thing that might be universal is to try to experiment. You have to continue to evolve as people’s interests change, even the people who follow you.’

As always, set out your KPIs at the beginning of every campaign and review consistently, but also share these with your leadership team. Commit to facing disappointments and surprises head-on, with regular discussions amongst your digital teams and stakeholders to welcome ideas form the unlikeliest of places. Agree to deliver an action from every major learning point so that every experiment gets you closer to the full picture of your audience’s behaviours and journey. 

• Data Collaboration – Find and work closely with expert data partners who can help you create the business case that demonstrates return on ad spend and secures the budget you need to deliver on your OKRs. Jane Stiller, Chief Marketing Officer at ITV, shares how to assess the qualities of an ideal data partner: ‘Number one: looking for a team and partners that can partner a business really effectively, that can understand their needs; number two: understand who is the decision maker and how they are going to make a decision; and number three, be able to package the work.’

 

Data advancements in advertising are changing everything for customer acquisition – so is ViewersLogic. 

We measure the entire journey from ad exposure to purchase, empowering marketing teams to optimise and demonstrate ROI on their online and TV campaigns. Our single-source data directly connects media exposure with online and offline purchases on the same individuals, based on one data set with no data fusion, delivering CMOs with unprecedented visibility on which efforts are really acquiring new customers.

Uncover your hidden data – here’s how CMOs are driving customer acquisition through the power of single-source.