At this year’s Rakuten Advertising DealMaker, we caught up with Nick Fletcher, SVP EMEA, to dive into industry transformation — from consumer journeys and probabilistic measurement to affiliate-creator convergence — at a time when the rate of change is “even more exponential” than before.
Fletcher highlighted that, while consumers are trialling LLMs and AI products, which can be a “big help,” they also create a lack of clarity for marketers. “We’re trying to get on top of that as an industry.”
In our conversation, he also explored the challenges relating to tracking consumer journeys.
“Tracking technologies have always been hit or miss, but I think they're now increasingly miss, because the user journey is so non-linear.”
Here, Fletcher said that more clients are moving away from deterministic tracking-based measurements and towards probabilistic measurement, which he said isn't as straightforward and clear-cut.
“It is a challenge. It's a different way of thinking about measurement, but it does present an opportunity, particularly for something like affiliate, which has, I think, almost been held back at some points by this last click wins approach.”
And with the convergence of affiliate and creator, he noted that MMM and probabilistic measurement approaches can enable more value to be allocated towards traditional upper funnel publishers. “Creators, as you'd imagine, would typically fall in that upper funnel touch point.”
Looking at the industry more broadly, Fletcher said that AI and automation can provide traditional and regulated services verticals with the confidence that the publishers they’re working with are promoting the right offers to their consumers and remaining compliant.
“There's a big opportunity for financial services clients to invest in the industry.”
Watch our conversation with Nick Fletcher below.
