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Implications and Policy Discussion

There are two separate sets of policy implications that can be drawn from this analysis. The rst set of policy implications are the consequences of these new attribution technologies for understanding how advertising markets work. Theory suggests that attribution technologies could have two potential conicting implications. First, if they led advertisers to cluster and target just a few small groups of receptive user eyeballs, then this could lead to higher prices paid for advertising (Chandra, 2009). Alternatively, if attribution technologies lead advertisers instead to substitute away from higher-priced advertising options and target ever-thinner markets, this could lead to lower prices paid by advertisers for advertising (Bergemann and Bonatti, 2011). These competing hypotheses in the theoretical predictions make the consequences of cross-channel attributions an empirical question - one I seek to answer in this paper. In two dierent datasets, I nd repeated evidence that the use of attribution (and improved advertising measurement) technologies appear to be associated with lower prices for advertising. I present evidence that this appears to be associated with advertisers using these attribution technologies to identify subsets of consumers to advertise to. The advantage of these more nuanced subsets of consumers for the advertiser, is that the advertising platform is unable to charge a premium because there are fewer other advertisers bidding up prices. I also present evidence that in general these attribution technologies are being used by advertisers to allocate resources across online and display advertising, and facilitate substitution across these dierent media platforms. Theoretically, this is important for competition policy, both for understanding the right market denition, and also because it helps alleviate concerns that the economies of scope in the collection of data for measurement purposes might favor any one advertising platform (Clemons, 2010). Given this set of apparent benets, the second set of policy implications concern the po-

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