TechBytes with Matthew Hultgren, VP of Analytics at Marketing Architects

Tell us about your role and the team/technology you handle at Marketing Architects.

I lead the analytics team at Marketing Architects, and it’s my responsibility to help our clients understand their data and how it impacts results. Ultimately, we’re helping clients achieve transformative growth through television. We’ve heavily invested in an abundance of groundbreaking technology over the years, creating our own proprietary platforms that are second to none. And we’ve strategically partnered with outside parties to further accelerate our ability to learn and grow.

What is the essence of your TV agency platform and how has it disrupted the high cost of media, creative, and analytics?

Our unique platform enables us to solve our clients’ critical business problems. We disrupt the traditional high-cost structure of TV advertising by combining media, creative, conversion and analytics under one roof. The result? Highly effective TV campaigns that produce transformative business outcomes for our clients.

You place importance on effectively managing ad budgets and testing creative. Why is this your differentiator?

Cost of entry is a huge hurdle to testing in the TV industry. Production costs for high-quality creatives are sky high. As a result, many companies are unable to test more than one creative concept, which ultimately, diminishes their chances of success. We have found that testing is a key ingredient to landing the right creative message. So, we take that creative risk capital out of the equation. We fully invest in the creative for our clients. And we do this knowing that while our pilots won’t be profitable for us, we’ll be able to test more and therefore, achieve greater success for our clients.

What are the major pain points for TV advertiser and network groups in scaling their analytics, and how do you solve these problems? 

Many companies simply don’t have the time or resources necessary to decipher the analytics behind television. When a client partners with us, they gain access to both an expert analytics team and a stellar technology suite. They also tap into 22 years of industry experience, partnering with true TV connoisseurs who bring transformative thinking to their business and ultimately, accelerate growth.

How do you plan to extend the benefits of your partnership with TVSquared to your customers? How do you bridge the gap between online and offline analytics?

Our partnership with TVSquared is invaluable, and we extend the full suite of benefits to all of our clients. TVSquared’s technology goes well beyond the top of the funnel. It gives us and our clients a better understanding of what ultimately, drives conversion, and how TV is performing alongside other marketing channels. It has helped us bridge the analytics gap from offline spend to online sales, giving us a more transparent view into overall performance.

Why should TV advertising companies rely on a Marketing Attribution and Intelligence platform?

TV advertising clients want to see a clear connection between their TV marketing spend and business performance, and it’s our responsibility to show them that picture. In addition to investing $50 million in our own platforms, we have elite access to the best tools in the industry. This powerful combination has allowed us to illustrate that ROI picture in high definition.

What is the current state of Machine Learning and AI in TV advertising analytics? 

More and more agencies are shifting towards programmatic buying and AI solutions. Yet there is a growing pain surrounding measurement, and AI seems to be falling short on the long-term metrics that drive brand building, which ultimately drives profitable growth.

How do you leverage data science, AI and Machine Learning in your technology stack?

Data drives all of our decisions. From statistical paneling research on message creation to Machine Learning forecasting and AI media planning, we will always continue to invest in the technologies that serve our clients best.

How do you see the TV analytics market growing in the next two years?

TV is becoming more and more digitized and the analytics market will have to adapt as everyone expects the next major leap forward in measurement. The concerns around data protection have the measurement of Advanced TV inching along at a snail’s pace. Once Advanced TV begins to scale and new technologies are built, TV analytics will change drastically.