For marketers under pressure to show results faster and more often, standing still isn’t an option. It’s becoming a race – not for perfection, but for progress. “You don’t have to outrun the bear – you just have to outrun your friend,” says Jordan Rost, head of ad marketing at Roku. “It’s about being more performant than you were yesterday.”
That need for speed is driving a transformation in how campaigns are measured, optimized, even imagined. “What we heard from clients consistently was that they were finding out what happened on their campaign four to six weeks after it ended – while they were already into the next campaign,” says Laura Manning, SVP global data & measurement at Cint. “They can’t change anything. They can’t plan around it. We want to shorten that time window.”
Today, Cint delivers daily brand lift results at the speed of programmatic – and in the hands of media buyers, not buried in decks. “There are a million different cool platforms you can buy ads on, running 100 different creatives,” she says. “Clients need to know if they’re working or not. And they need to know quickly so they’re not wasting money.”
At Uber Advertising, its head of global measurement science, Edwin Wong, reframed “real-time” as something more grounded: the moment. “There’s an intrinsic connection between utility and what we call the moment,” he says. “Three-quarters of the time, people say it’s more relevant. Two-thirds say it’s better than other platforms. The moment ends up being the signal.”
For Roku operating in the streaming space, it’s about merging reach with accountability. “It’s fundamentally accountable because it’s television backed by the internet,” says Rost, pointing to new data-driven capabilities like real-time retargeting and closed-loop measurement in partnership with Amazon Ads.
That blend of immediacy and insight has a clear unlock: AI. “We’ve built AI that gives human-readable answers as to what actually happened – even for non-researchers,” says Manning, with Rost agreeing: “AI can’t have the last word, but it’s a fun partner.”
So, what’s the takeaway for marketers? Measurement is evolving from a report card to a strategic edge – and no one can go it alone. “Measurement is never going to be more of a team sport than it is now,” says Rost.
And for Manning, it’s about driving impact in-flight – not just post-campaign: “What we’re trying to do is beat the outcome. We want to help you make your campaign better as it’s going so that you can actually use your dollars more wisely.”
Watch the full video for the insights driving marketing’s measurement in motion.
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