Omnicom's patent-pending software ties earned media to sales

Dive Brief:

Omnicom Public Relations Group this week introduced a patent-pending analytics platform for earned media, or the publicity gained through promotional efforts other than paid advertising. The agency's OmniearnedID aims to help marketers evaluate the effectiveness of these campaigns with the same precision as for paid media, per an announcement.
Omnicom built OmniearnedID atop its Omni marketing insights platform to provide information on how earned media affect sales and brand health, to quantify the effect of influencer campaigns on business outcomes and to analyze anonymized consumer information around who's viewing earned media content.
Omnicom says OmniearnedID can support a brand's entire marketing strategy, not just its PR, by linking earned media to measurable business outcomes like sales and brand reputation. The platform can assess the reach of a potentially damaging news story or blog post, understand current cultural trends and help predict future trends and has applications for companies in the consumer packaged goods, technology or health and wellness industries.

Dive Insight:

Omnicom PR Group's new service aims to help marketers and communications professionals measure the effects of earned media on business outcomes, using some of the same methods for evaluating the results of paid advertising campaigns. Even though marketers can't completely control how their brands are presented in the press or across social media, these mentions can be highly effective at cutting through clutter. That's especially true in reaching audiences who may not see advertising while using ad blockers or spending more time with ad-free streaming services like Netflix.

The company says the software, which it claims is fully compliant with global data privacy regulations, goes beyond typical analytics offerings in the PR industry, which tend to be limited to tracking coverage, reach or engagement. Omni, the insights platform launched two years ago that is distributed across Omnicom agencies, supports the ability of Omniearned ID to leverage data that can directly link social to sales, per the release. The expansion of Omni into earned media comes as agency holding groups are looking to data to provide value to brand clients during a difficult period for growth.

Earned media has become more important in reaching audiences through influencer campaigns as consumers spend more time on social media. About half (51%) of U.S. consumers said they had bought a product or service after seeing it used or promoted by an influencer, a study by marketing technology company Valassis found. More than a third (35%) of consumers made an unplanned purchase based on something they saw on social media, while 21% made an influencer-motivated purchase for the first time since pandemic started, per Valassis.

Omnicom PR's rollout of OmniearnedID comes as other agencies introduce data-driven technologies to help marketers evaluate the effectiveness of their publicity campaigns in a reflection of how the increasingly data-driven approach used for paid media is expanding into other areas of marketing as brands demand efficiency and transparency. Ad holding company MDC Partners in October introduced Prophet, a platform that uses artificial intelligence to predict media interest, sentiment and spread before a story pitch. Edelman launched CommsTech Solutions, a service and software platform to predict employee and activist behavior, cut business risk, generate leads and spur action.