MAM
GroupM and Lifesight launch India’s first online to offline attribution playbook
MUMBAI: GroupM India and Lifesight, a location intelligence platform and data company, have co-created a playbook answering key questions advertising clients have on online to offline attribution and outlining ways in which marketers can use intelligence on consumers’ online behaviors to impact offline sales. This is the first-of-its-kind attribution study in India examining the conversion of online ads into offline sales.
Given that large populations of consumers and businesses are still operating out of physical stores and the fact that India has also witnessed e-commerce brands moving into offline spaces, it is critical to have data to help marketers connect the dots and uncover insights on how the offline consumer behavior is impacted by online advertising.
GroupM understands that new age consumers' buying journeys are blended and multi-channel. Customers switch quickly and continuously between online and offline realms. Hence, considering behaviors, patterns and journeys are crucial, not just in contextual and personalised advertising but also marketing measurements.
GroupM South Asia president – growth and transformation Tushar Vyas said, “The importance of omnichannel strategies has grown exponentially, and the lines between online and offline have begun to blur. Given that the consumer journey between online and offline is becoming seamless, it is critical to have the right technology to manage location data and location-based attribution models to provide better insights to clients.”
Marketing attribution is the science of crediting marketing touchpoints with consumers for actions they take after exposure and consequently allocating advertising budgets according to performance. GroupM and Lifesight have identified six different attribution models for accurate footfall attribution: first touch, last touch, position-based, linear-based, time decay and data-driven.
Vyas added, “For a marketer to understand what’s working in their campaigns, it is important to attribute the right conversion to its apt source. At GroupM, we understand the constant need to create, invent and reinvent the right measurement frameworks to help our clients address their business problems.”
In 300+ campaigns run through Lifesight, with over 200 brands, there were remarkable insights discovered:
1) The average costs to drive in consumer footfall is the most for consumer durables and the Auto sector and the least for Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) and Fashion.
2) Offline attribution works best for auto and QSR since most people would visit a physical store
3) The retail sector takes the least time (2-3 days) to drive a walk-in from exposure. On average, it takes approximately 6-9 days across verticals to drive store walk-ins
4) 70 per cent of the initial walk-ins to physical stores happens within the first 8 exposures. Retail takes the least number of exposures while fashion requires the most.
Lifesight co-founder and CEO Tobin Thomas said, "Marketers today have unlimited options for building, targeting, and delivering a campaign. But even with all these options, one question remains- is my advertising working? With a large number of channels to choose from, it’s imperative to understand how each campaign component performed comparatively. As a result, location attribution has emerged as a powerful solution to stitch together channel, audience, and platform signals to understand reactions to online advertising in the real world.”
Thomas added, "Lifesight is leading efforts to take campaign success metrics beyond the click. We are excited that leading a marketing powerhouse like GroupM has joined us at the forefront of online-to-offline attribution.”
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
