Dashboard Insights: What They Show (and Miss) About Channel Performance
▼ Summary
– Jessica’s performance reports show strong results in easily measurable channels like paid search and remarketing, but miss complex consumer behaviors like multi-screen engagement.
– Many impactful channels (e.g., CTV, podcasts, mobile games) aren’t credited in standard reporting due to fuzzy measurement and last-click attribution biases.
– Discrepancies arise between ad platform data, ad server reports, and internal analytics, creating a “data conflict triangle” that complicates decision-making.
– View-through conversions and cross-device tracking further muddy performance insights, as upper-funnel impacts often go uncredited in traditional attribution models.
– To optimize effectively, marketers should compare multiple attribution models, use ad servers as checks, run holdout tests, and track proxy signals like branded search or direct traffic spikes.
Understanding the gaps in channel performance dashboards is crucial for marketers who want to make data-driven decisions without losing sight of real consumer behavior. Take Jessica, a senior marketing manager at a national retail brand, who receives polished reports showing strong performance from paid search and remarketing. Yet she knows her audience engages across multiple touchpoints, podcasts, CTV, mobile games, where impact is real but harder to measure.
The challenge? High-performing channels often appear that way simply because they’re easier to track. Last-click attribution favors lower-funnel tactics like paid search and social ads, while upper-funnel efforts, such as CTV campaigns or podcast sponsorships, rarely get credit for influencing conversions. This creates a skewed view of what’s actually driving growth.
Ad servers add another layer of complexity. Designed to prevent double-counting, they often underreport view-through conversions, especially for display and video ads where clicks are rare but impressions matter. When Jessica compares platform data with her ad server’s reports, discrepancies emerge. Neither fully captures the cross-device journeys her audience takes, watching an ad on CTV at night, searching on mobile the next morning, and finally converting on desktop.
So how can marketers navigate this maze?
Layer attribution models, compare last-click, first-touch, and multi-touch to uncover hidden influences. A channel that looks weak in last-click might be critical in early-funnel awareness.
The takeaway? Data is essential, but it’s only part of the story. When dashboards don’t reflect where your audience actually spends time, the problem isn’t the channel, it’s the measurement. Great marketers don’t just optimize for what’s measurable; they optimize for what moves their audience.
(Source: MarTech)
