New Digital Age, in association with DoubleVerify, recently hosted a client-side marketer roundtable discussion on the key challenges facing brand marketers in relation to performance and measurement.
NDA’s editor-in-chief Justin Pearse chaired the discussion, where he was joined by: Scott Bodie, Head of Media UKI – Andrex and Kleenex, Kimberly-Clark; Gen Braine, Local Digital and Media Planning Lead at Domino’s; Richard Bowden, Marketing and Digital Director, No. 7 Beauty Company (Boots UK); Jo Childs, Head of Brand, Carwow; James Damaa, Senior Manager – Global Strategic Data Capability at Costa Coffee; Neil Jones, Head of Performance Media at The Boots Group; Aleksandra Marsh, Director of Marketing and Communications in fashion and luxury; plus Anna Forbes, RVP of Northern Europe, and Ashley Bateman, Group Director, both with DoubleVerify.
“Measurement’s always tough,” said Jones of The Boots Group. “We use multiple lenses: GA4, first‑party data, econometrics, and incrementality testing. The challenge is fragmentation and defining a single version of truth for the business. When things like LLMs or zero‑click searches enter the mix, you’re reacting to a moving target.”
Damaa spoke of how Costa Coffee has shifted away from short-term product pushes, in favour of building “brand love” and awareness: “Econometrics is useful but too slow, we need faster reads. We’re looking to integrate loyalty transaction data to make performance measurable in real time.”
Domino’s Gen Braine offered insights into the “fast-moving and fragmented” digital media marketplace and how her team attempts to measure the impact of their media investments. “MMM gives us a cornerstone, GA4 the day‑to‑day, and we’re trialling MTA to bridge the two. The goal is joining up brand and performance data to understand true ROI.”
Sectoral challenges
Carwow’s Jo Childs argued that one of her key challenges in relation to attribution and measurement is “getting stakeholders to understand that brand metrics like awareness and consideration drive performance too.” In response, said Childs, they run small‑scale test‑and‑learn programmes to help build the required level of internal confidence.
Meanwhile, in the beauty sector, fragmentation and a longer consideration cycle are concerns right now, said Bowden. “People search, then stop, delay their purchase, and we lose visibility of what’s happening.
That’s why our Boots Advantage Card data is critical, it helps us join the dots between browsing and buying, and understand not just what’s purchased, but why. That insight lets us build better lookalikes and refine our targeting.”
Marsh who specialises in fashion and luxury brands, added: “Fashion and luxury sell feeling and perceived value, rather than just products, measuring this is complex. We use media mix modelling to understand which investments move consumers emotionally along the journey.”
Interestingly, Bodie of FMCG brand giant Kimberly-Clark, agreed on the importance of emotion in helping brand communications to land with the consumer. “FMCG doesn’t control the end transaction, so econometrics is our cornerstone. It’s easy for the ROI conversation to dominate, but we also need to tell the brand and emotion story, using brand lift studies and sentiment tracking.”
Education, education, education
Bowden argued that there’s a “huge need” to educate boards to see marketing as an investment, rather than a cost. “Data should be seen as a valuable asset,” he said, “something we build, nurture and even monetise over time. If we frame marketing this way, we can shift the conversation from spend and volume to long‑term growth and brand value.”
Damaa agreed that CMOs need to be brave with data: “Data belongs under marketing, because the CMO must use it to influence financial decisions. They need evidence to convince CFOs, and that means trusting and simplifying data for the board.”
Braine commented: “We’re lucky that our data team sits within marketing, we brief them on what matters. Our CMO firmly believes media spend drives revenue. For a franchise model, we need to prove that in EBITDA terms to franchisees, so we need to be able to speak their financial language and link it to our marketing efforts.”
Jones explained how, within The Boots Group, he has also been pushing his marketing team to improve their financial literacy and increase their understanding of revenue, profit contribution, and EBITDA. “It’s not just about online performance,” said Jones, “we’re now proving how media drives in‑store sales too.”
Forbes of DoubleVerify discussed how the company had recently acquired RockerBox, pioneers in MMM and MTA, to add to their measurement and verification capabilities. “Our goal is to unify independent measurement across platforms, open web, social, CTV and so on, so marketers can optimize holistically and prove effectiveness faster than bi‑annual econometrics. We position our tools as an investment, not a cost, always leading with ROI and value. Every product has a calculator for its contribution to performance.”
