In an industry challenged by rapidly declining advertising revenues, leading publishers like The Economist have pivoted to a subscription-first business in order to drive growth. The publisher uses a mix of traditional and digital marketing tactics to capture new subscribers, but had trouble understanding the true impact of its growing marketing spend amid an ever-increasing number of consumer touchpoints.

Simplistic, last-click attribution models were easy to use, but offered limited visibility into the effectiveness of upper-funnel investments like TV and display, or when to time marketing activities to optimize performance. When the publisher sought to expand its subscriber base in the U.S. and U.K., the company turned to Nielsen to better understand which of its tactics were working well, and how to best allocate its growing marketing budget to maximize subscriptions going forward.