Linear TV Overview
Summary
By analyzing the impact on site sessions after a TV commercial airs, Rockerbox is able to insert a touchpoint along the user’s path to conversion for Linear TV.
Rockerbox first identifies if we saw a statistically significant lift in the 5 minutes after a commercial airs. Additionally, if we have historical lift data for that commercial, we will normalize the lift impact. After we smooth out the lift—assuming there is a measurable increase—we then insert touchpoints in the path of users who come to site during that 5-minute window who did not come to site via another non-navigational channel.
Tracking your Linear TV in Rockerbox will enable you to not only gain a better understanding of the performance of Linear TV in combination with the rest of your digital channels but also identify any halo impact Linear TV may be having on your bottom-funnel channels.
Rockerbox linear TV methodology is supported in the US and Canada only.
Methodology
Step One: Spike Visit Analysis
The first step is to determine if the commercial had a statistically significant impact on the number of visitors coming to your site. In order to do so - we use a baseline period 10 minutes before a commercial aired to determine average sessions started.
The user sessions are filtered for where the spot aired. For example, if it’s a US national campaign, we will use session data from the entire US. If it’s a DMA-targeted ad, then we will only use session traffic from that specific DMA.
In the US, for Dual Feed spots, ads are aired at the same time in their respective time zones. For example, a dual feed ad that airs at 11AM ET in US/Eastern timezone, and it will also run again at 11AM PT (2PM ET) in US/Pacific Timezone. For dual feed ads, Rockerbox only evaluates sessions in the geographic regions where the ad ran at the time.
Once we have the baseline sessions established, then we use a test period 5 minutes after a commercial aired to determine lift from the commercial.
With this 5 minute period, we run the following test:
Test: * Null Hypothesis: Baseline (sessions/minute) >= Postlog (sessions/minute) * Alternative: Postlog (sessions/minute) > Baseline (sessions/minute)
Criteria: * Use a t-test (p-value < .1) to determine if the result is significant
If we do not have any baseline traffic for a given geo where you are running a spot we will not attribute any touchpoints to that commercial. Meaning if you are running awareness campaigns in a net new market - there may be no lift observed here.
Step Two: Apply Dynamic Baseline Smoothing
In this step, for any commercial we’ve previously observed, we will perform lift smoothing based on historically observed impact. Not only does this allow us to reduce overstating impact due to natural volatility, but it also allows us to measure the impact on session traffic when there are overlapping commercials. This resulting impact is called the Effect Size.
More details available here: TV Attribution
Step Three: Attribute touchpoints to Users
If a statistically significant lift is observed, touchpoints are assigned to visitors who visit the site through non-navigational channels within that 5-minute window, limited by the commercial’s relative Effect Size.
We assign touchpoints to users who did not come to the site via another channel i.e. paid social. The exception to this is Brand or Organic search - if a user comes to site during this 5-minute window via a branded or organic search touchpoint we will insert a touchpoint along this user’s path.
Rockerbox uses a 14-day lookback window for Linear TV - meaning that a user must convert within 14 days from the spot time for Rockerbox to insert a touchpoint in their path. Because Linear TV attribution is probabilistic in nature, Rockerbox has limited the lookback window to limit over-attribution.
Rockerbox will prioritize inserting TV touchpoints to onsite sessions driven by Direct, Organic Search, and Paid Search. We refer to this group collectively as Navigational Channels.
Vendor Requirements to Track your Linear TV data in Rockerbox
Rockerbox requires postlog files from your Linear TV vendor - this provides us timestamp, geo, and network details against every commercial.
Please see here for our pre-existing integrations - if you do not see your vendor on this list reach out to your Rockerbox team.