The Marketing Measurement Round Up: Edition #42

Welcome to another edition of In The Loop: The Marketing Measurement Round Up ??

What you can expect from this newsletter: As a marketer, you know that measurement is essential to success. But with so many different metrics, data points and tools to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to start. That's where In The Loop comes in. Each week, we'll deliver the latest marketing measurement trends and best practices to help you measure your marketing effectiveness and improve ROI.

From our perspective

Marketers often set up basic retargeting campaigns aimed at people who have visited their website or are close to making a purchase.

Here’s the problem:

• You end up showing the wrong ads to people at the wrong time in their buying journey.
• You waste money targeting existing customers with ads meant to bring in new ones.
• Even when you manually upload audience lists (like a CSV file), they quickly go out of date as people move through the funnel.

Tech-driven marketers take it a step further by combining customer IDs with session data to get a real-time, dynamic view of where people are in their journey.

By tracking customer behavior and interactions, you can figure out exactly where someone is in the buying process.?

Then, you can automatically sync that data with platforms like Meta to serve up ads that hit at just the right time with the right message.

Instead of running broad retargeting campaigns for everyone who’s visited your site, you can focus on specific people with personalised messages when it matters most.?

Plus, you can build better custom and lookalike audiences to find more high-value customers.

It’s the smarter way to stretch your budget and get better results—especially in today’s “do more with less” world.

The latest in marketing measurement

1. Google Analytics enhances remarketing with Customer Match in GA4

Google has introduced Customer Match for Google Analytics audiences, a feature designed to enhance reach and optimise remarketing campaigns.

This tool leverages first-party customer data to refine audience targeting, offering a more tailored approach as reliance on traditional tracking methods like third-party cookies declines.

When a user completes a conversion on your website, you may collect first-party data, such as email addresses or phone numbers. This data can be securely hashed and uploaded to Google, enriching your Analytics audiences. By integrating this data, Customer Match ensures your campaigns align more closely with user preferences, improving effectiveness and adaptability in a shifting digital landscape.

Our thoughts

To get more out of your audiences and retargeting, this update is a step in the right direction, especially with its focus on data security—it’s good to see those reassurances. Like we said before, we’re in the ‘do more with less’ era, so every bit counts.

That said, there are two things to keep in mind. First, the update mentions forms and phone calls. But not all forms convert, and some leads don’t even qualify. Sending too many unqualified conversions to your ad platform can mess with your results. And second, forms are just one piece of the puzzle.?

What about everything that happens off your site? Phone sales, in-person purchases, conferences—they’re all critical touchpoints but aren’t tracked online. So, you’re working with incomplete data if you’re only looking at forms and calls.

2. Microsoft revamps advertising tracking, consent features

Microsoft is introducing major updates to its advertising platform, focusing on household attribution and regulatory compliance:

• Household Attribution: Tracks ad engagement across devices within a household, enabling advertisers to match cross-device interactions, gain insights into audience behavior, and optimise campaigns for high-consideration products.

• Consent Compliance Enhancements: New tools for EEA, UK, and Switzerland regulations, including:

• UET Consent Mode: Adjusts tags based on user consent.
• Transparency and Consent Framework 2.0: Integrates with CMPs like Usercentrics and Web CMP.
• Google Tag Manager Integration: Streamlines consent state retrieval.

Additionally, Microsoft is pausing Store Visits (FourSquare) and Footfall Measurement (AdSquare) features starting Dec. 1 and Dec. 31, respectively.

Our thoughts

Attribution is our thing, so any improvements in the advertising space make us happy.??

When using Microsoft attribution, keep a few things in mind. The attribution window is pretty short—usually 30 days, though it can stretch to 90—which doesn’t work well for those long B2B sales cycles.?

Like Meta and Google, Microsoft tends to be a bit biased. They focus mostly on how their own platform drives clicks, visits, and conversions, which means they often overlook traffic and insights from other channels.?

As we all know, the customer journey is long and usually involves multiple touchpoints and channels along the way.

Content we think you'll benefit from

• Google Search Console rolling out new date controls for performance reports

Google Search Console is rolling out a new date picker for the performance reports. This replaces the old performance report menu, where it showed a date selector, search type, and additional filters.

• Is GA4 data sampling affecting your reporting? Here’s how to fix it

Get familiar with Google Analytics 4 data sampling and how to work around it for more accurate reports.

• 6 Key insights from the 2025 attractions industry benchmark report

Uncover data from ROLLER 's 2025 Attractions Industry Benchmark Report that will help your venue plan for a successful year ahead.

Just for fun

It’s the perfect time to bring this sketch back, right? Marketoonist