As outcomes become a preferred metric, Disqo hopes to corner the market with its new tool

It’s all part of a larger plan to offer a sort of flywheel of market research, ad measurement and real-time consumer polling for clients by the privately held Disqo, which just a year ago secured $85 million in Series B funding to expand its business. It’s trying to become a more important tool for marketers and agencies that often turn to other bigger intelligence firms like Nielsen or Comscore.

Though piloted in various stages for more than a year, the Outcomes Lift tool is being formally unveiled as a companion piece to Disqo’s Brand Lift tool, which gauges the effectiveness of an ad based on consumer attention. Outcomes Lift, through consented consumer feedback, can report on actions taken by a consumer after exposure to the ad with questions such as: did they visit your website? Did they order one of your products online?

“Brand and upper funnel activity is important, but if you’re not combining that with lower funnel activities, like search activity, like site visitation, and most importantly, sometimes e-commerce activity … you’re kind of missing how effective your media might be — or not —and many different KPIs that you can optimize on,” said Stephen Jepson, Disqo’s evp of ad effectiveness, who oversaw the team that created the Outcomes Lift tool.

Given that customer base for the tool cuts across agencies, marketers and platforms, each uses it for similar but not identical purposes. But the tool does offer a peek over the high walls of the major social platforms.

Dana Cohen, vp and director of analytics at Havas Media Group, said that Outcomes Lift “gives us a clearer picture on what consumers are doing after interacting with our [clients’] ads, even if they saw the ad within a ‘walled garden’ environment. Other research firms stop at the purchase intent level and leave us with questions as to whether those consumers truly have intent to purchase or learn more.”

“Brands really care about what’s not working just as much as what’s working, because then they can optimize their mix,” added Jepson.

Nestlé Purina has been working with Outcomes Lift as an early pilot brand, said Emily Weishaupt, the marketer’s communications insights manager, and she uses it to not only gauge actions taken for her ads, but also the competitive set in that ad category. “What can be just insightful is, are we driving interest in our category, but not our brand, with our communication?” she said.

Weishaupt pointed out that so much marketing isn’t in a linear line — often consumers take very circuitous paths to purchase. So having insight into their ultimate action taken has been a payoff for her and her team. 

“It’s been key for helping us understand the complexity of that nonlinear journey, but [also] ensuring we have that right presence at the right time and right place,” said Weishaupt.

On the publisher side, Maegan Nevins, director of analytics for music video platform Vevo, said she uses Outcomes Lift in partnership with Brand Lift as a value proposition of sorts. “We positioned it as, let’s not only measure brand, lift but measure the behaviors that are being taken post-exposure,” she said. “And it sparked interest in clients to where we have them now requesting Disqo as their brand measurement of choice on campaigns.”