Navigating 'the messy middle'. A Think With Google article

Great article from Think With Google on the "messy middle" - not a new concept but some great talking points to use in your client communications. Reminds me of the "Zero Moment Of Truth" that google touted back in the day, but with more behavioral context woven in vs straight up search patterns and triggers that identify an early indicator of a potential customer. Elevating the conversation into two key categories "Exploration and Evaluation" is a great starting point to holistically audit your digital footprint to determine how you're currently delivering against them.

"Applying behavioral sciences principles to the purchase decision process"

At King Ursa we look through this lens in our connections planning approach. A process that kicks off every project and involves input from our entire team (analytics, strategy, media, account leads and creative). In this process we seek to elevate the intention of a conversion journey (awareness / consideration / conversion) into ensuring we connect and deliver a correlating benefit at each potential touch point. Every investment made by a client (be it media or content) isn't about forcing someone through the funnel, but rather independently building its associated value to the intended audience - in context - at each potential touchpoint - or - "the messy middle". 

Our team is also looking to change the perspective on the true intention of media buying. Outside of delivering on business objectives and KPIs, we see this investment as a form of data acquisition and research where, concluding every media buy, builds increased clarity of "the messy middle". Questions based measurement frameworks are needed upfront in the planning process to ensure this can happen (Follow King Ursa on LinkedIn for more on this soon).