Scaling measurement in a fragmented landscape
Back in April 2026, Katie Ingram (Director of Advertising Week Europe) sat down with Cint’s Kathryn Failon (VP, Measurement) to discuss a challenge that keeps advertisers up at night: fragmentation.
A companion to our recently published guide The Borderless Blueprint: How to scale measurement in a fragmented world, the pair were on stage in London for a session that took place as part of this year’s Advertising Week Europe event.
Together, they explored how brands can maintain measurement consistency when operating across diverse platforms, regions, and regulatory landscapes.
Read on for a recap of their illuminating conversation.
Breaking down silos
The discussion opened with a look at the primary risks brands face when their measurement strategies aren’t unified. Ingram noted that the market is becoming increasingly fragmented, making it harder than ever for global brands to see a clear picture of performance.
“Using different measurement solutions across markets will ultimately lead to data existing in silos,” Failon explained. “When this happens, it makes it difficult to not only benchmark performance across markets but also to optimize your campaigns at scale.”
For advertisers planning major global activations, Failon argued that a unified methodology is a necessity. Without a standardized framework in place, a brand cannot accurately compare the success of a campaign in one country to that of another.
By implementing a “borderless” measurement blueprint, brands can finally eliminate these silos and ensure their data is actionable on a global scale.
Outlining the pillars of unified measurement strategies
Ingram went on to ask how brands should evaluate measurement partners to ensure both total transparency and effective scalability.
For Failon, the crucial thing for advertisers on this front is to start “digging under the hood” in order to move beyond a passive approach to brand lift. She identified three essential pillars for any measurement partnership:
Transparency
Do you know anything about your audience? What platforms were they exposed to? Do you know their demographics?
Data quality
Do you have any inclination as to where the data and respondents were sourced?
Scalability
Are there respondents in all of the markets where you are running your media? Are you able to survey people in each of those markets?
That wasn’t Failon’s only set of recommendations.
“At Cint, we recommend running no more than five KPIs. We do this for a few reasons. First, to encourage advertisers to think about the primary goals of the campaign. You aren’t going to move the needle on every single thing—that would be great, but we’d probably be without jobs! It encourages you to focus: Is it brand awareness? Is it purchase intent? Additionally, only running five KPIs facilitates a better survey respondent experience.”
Failon added that, in today’s world where everyone’s attention is going by the wayside, respondents aren’t necessarily going to want to sit down and take part in a 15-minute long survey.
“We want to keep it short and sweet, and we also want to make it as seamless as possible to benchmark performance across campaigns, markets, and channels.”
Making real-time measurement matter
Real-time data and insights are the dream for anyone involved in ad campaigns, but how can having access to them materially change the global direction of any given campaign?
“Having access to real-time measurement impacts your ability to both launch campaigns at scale and optimize those campaigns as well. You’ll have insight into how different media channels and audiences are performing.”
Kathryn Failon
VP, Measurement, Cint
“Having access to real-time measurement impacts your ability to both launch campaigns at scale and optimize those campaigns as well,” says Failon. “You’ll have insight into how different media channels and audiences are performing.”
Failon gave the forthcoming FIFA World Cup as a prime example of where a real-time approach to measurement can pay dividends for global brands.
“Let’s say that you’re Unilever and you’re running a campaign for Dove during the event. With real-time insights, you’d be able to see if CTV is driving the highest brand awareness, or if females aged between 25-54 are moving the needle when it comes to purchase intent.”
The real-time approach offered by Lucid Measurement provides brands with the data they need to shift media budgets into better performing tactics even while the campaign is in-flight.
You can actually move your media budget into those better-performing tactics in real-time, which will make your budgets work a little bit harder for you.
This agility allows advertisers to treat measurement not just as a report, but as a lever for performance. By integrating brand lift with behavioral outcomes and sales lift, Lucid Measurement provides a comprehensive overview of how campaigns affect both consumer perception and the bottom line.
Leveraging full-scale integration
“There’s no ‘perfect’ measurement framework that exists out there,” Failon stated. “So with that in mind, I’d encourage advertisers to work with a partner that offers the most flexibility.”
Maybe you’re newer to the brand lift space and you need a bit more hand-holding and consultative, localized support; Cint offers that by way of a managed service.
Maybe you’re a more research-savvy team and you want to achieve cost efficiencies by taking on more of the operational load; we have a tool called the Study Creator platform that allows brands to launch studies with ease.
“Lastly, you can leverage a full-scale integration that we have with a DSP partner like The Trade Desk,” said Failon. “You can go directly into the platform, check a box, launch a study in a matter of minutes, and have access to results in a matter of days.”
Effectively, our solution functions as a one-stop shop for modern media measurement.
“You’re able to launch campaigns faster with Lucid Measurement. You’re able to leverage a similar survey template across markets and benchmark performance while reducing operational challenges that exist when launching across multiple partners and methodologies. You can just stick with the same framework in one place,” said Failon.
Learn more about Lucid Measurement
Want to know more about how you can optimize lift results for your campaigns through Lucid Measurement?
Get in touch with Cint today to discover more.
