Two weeks of lead time, a pixel or app integration installed if you are measuring conversions, and for lift studies a historical data file. Brand lift needs its brief written even though it needs none of your data.
Two weeks before launch
Pixel placement and app event setup. This is the long pole; the pixel tracking article covers how the tag is generated and installed. App attribution is the lighter of the two, because no SDK work is required: a mobile measurement partner such as AppsFlyer integrates directly.
A match test against the partner audience, confirming that your first party data or app audience matches the exposed set at a workable rate. This is a required first step rather than a formality.
Confirm which of the units you purchased actually carry attribution. Mobile units, some multi-level airport and transit locations, and digital vendors who do not supply play logs cannot be attributed. Finding this out at planning time is cheap; finding it out in the wrap report is not.
At least one week before launch, ideally two
The brand lift brief: your KPIs and the survey questions. Creative goes over separately, because the platform has no upload slot for it.
This is the deadline most often missed, and the reasoning behind missing it is sound but wrong. Brand lift needs none of your first party data, so it feels like it can wait. It cannot: the survey has to be live early enough to capture exposures across the whole flight.
Before launch, if you want halo effects
Authorization of Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Facebook. View or read access is what we need; you are not granting anyone the ability to change your campaigns.
Halo also needs an active campaign on those channels in your OOH markets, plus activity in markets without OOH, because the comparison is between them.
For causal lift, before or during the campaign
A CSV of daily events broken out by market, covering at least the six months before launch and ideally twelve, and including at least five markets where OOH is not running. Getting that export approved internally is often the slow part, since it usually needs sign off from a performance or analytics team rather than from marketing.
Market selection matters before launch. If every market you run in is a market you care about, there is nothing left to use as a control.
You do not have to wait for the campaign to finish. Once about two weeks of in-flight data exists the analysis can start and then update on a weekly or monthly cadence, which is worth doing when a decision about extending the campaign is coming.
After the campaign ends
Causal lift and halo data uploads are due about two weeks after the close. Brand lift results typically land within a couple of weeks of fielding.
Attribution needs nothing from you after launch. It populates on its own.
The fit checks for web attribution
Run these before you commit to the study rather than after. Each one has changed a measurement plan at least once.
Pixel timing: the pixel is live at least seven days before launch.
A real conversion event: something clearly defined, not just page views.
Traffic and spend: site traffic and per-market spend high enough for a clean read. The read gets noisier as either one falls, so it is worth checking your numbers with us in advance.
If any of the three looks doubtful, tell us early. Causal lift needs none of them.
Common misconceptions
Myth: Search lift and brand lift need no first party data, so their setup can wait.
Reality: True of search lift. Brand lift still needs a brief and questions, and it needs them early.
Myth: Everything can be turned on at any point in the campaign.
Reality: Web attribution and brand lift must be set up before the campaign starts. Most of the rest can be arranged afterwards.