With the real-time buying of addressable audiences firmly in place and with audience capabilities quickly expanding, how do you enable a real- time performance to improve real- time results?   How do you implement a faster feedback loop?

It’s a simple question and often a throwaway buzz-phrase, but the real application requires brand investment and can deliver tremendous results. To build a faster feedback loop, it requires coordination between internal and external teams, technologies and data, and it needs to be specifically relevant to your brand.

Without a solid foundation, your measurement structure will eventually collapse.

So where should YOU begin? Start by breaking down Faster Feedback Loop from your perspective:

Faster: Everyone is capable of moving faster speed with organizational and operational efficiency. If there is work to do here, this is where you begin as it’s the foundation for enabling faster feedback. You will know if there is work to be done if:

1. Silos exist between data, analytics, media, marketing, strategy or measurement

2. Clear process and ownership plans are not in place (Hello RACI)

3. An established data governance approach is lacking

4. The roles, owners and use cases for your MarTech/AdTech are not clear

Feedback: Understanding what data is possible to secure from active campaigns is almost as important as knowing what you need. You can determine what you need by clearly defining the end goal. Is it acquiring more customers, better customers or other brands’ customers? Once you have your need defined, then confirm the data is available to you. If your end goal or data available is not firmly established, this is where you begin. You will know to start here:

1. Alignment between internal teams on the ultimate business goal does not exist

2. You do not have access to/ownership of performance/media data (via DCM, DSPs)

3. Data is not currently being collected or organized in a usable manner

Loop: Defining how the data will be collected, processed and applied is the end game. The elements above provide the foundation to developing the ‘loop,’ which is a connection between the data collection, procession and application in your MarTech and AdTech. If you have elements above established, this is where you start. Establishing the loop is the most bespoke step of the phase, as it’s dependent on the teams and tech you currently have in place.

A faster feedback loop is fundamentally about the close alignment of data and activation to drive better consumer experiences and better business outcomes, and requires the fundamentals to be in place.
The benefits are clear for media performance – true in campaign performance feedback on performance tied to a business goal drives better media performance – but, there are additional benefits. Insights gained through the feedback loop can inform other disciplines of media and creative. A faster feedback loop surfacing consumer response, enables businesses to be more responsive to quickly changing consumer behavior.

Afterall, as Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead, is getting started.”