7 Reasons for Measuring Ad Effectiveness

How do you know if your advertising is really getting the job done? The answer: measuring ad effectiveness with marketing research. Gathering feedback from your target audience before, during, and after launch helps you make data-based decisions about your marketing strategy. Ad effectiveness research can help you answer important questions about your ad spending levels, media mix, and more:

• Are you reaching the right audience?
• Is the ad memorable?
• What impact is it having on your consumers’ brand perceptions and attitudes?
• Is it moving consumers to take the desired action?

Before launching your next ad, take a look at our 7-Step Ad Effectiveness Checklist to ensure your advertising is working hard, rather than hardly working.

Driving sales is a key advertising goal. However, it’s not always easy to accurately attribute the direct effect your ads are having on sales. That’s why it’s critical to also identify other measurable objectives for your ad campaigns. Are you looking to improve brand perceptions? Increase unaided brand awareness? Whatever your business situation, you need to set meaningful objectives to gauge effectiveness at influencing consumer attitudes and behaviors.

Not all customers are created equal. For instance, a company may know that Millennial parents tend to be their most profitable customers. Although their products appeal to a wider audience, they may be more successful targeting ads to their core customers. Be sure to include a good size sample of your high-priority audience to assess the ad’s effectiveness with confidence.

Measuring brand awareness and ad recall are key. However, be sure you capture enough detail to make decisions about your ad strategy. Consider adding questions that tie back to your advertising objectives, like brand consideration, perceptions, or purchase interest. A successful study will give you the feedback you need to confirm your ad strategy and check your campaign’s effectiveness.

Take steps to enhance your ad messaging pre-launch, whenever possible. Refining your campaign upfront with feedback on your brand’s positioning, key messaging, and ad concepts can go a long way. Whether you hold focus groups, get input from an online community, or conduct a quantitative survey, you can learn how well specific aspects of your ad appeal to your audience.

Another reason why it’s good to do a pre-launch survey is to get a baseline read on key metrics like brand and ad awareness. Comparing that to your post-launch results helps you measure the impact of your advertising itself, outside of other factors. Timing is everything. Be sure to time your pre- and post-launch surveys immediately before and after your ad flight. If mid-flight changes to the reach, frequency, or placement of your advertising are possible, you may consider measuring ad effectiveness mid-way through the ad flight as well.

Another way to gauge ad effectiveness is to compare test market results to a control market without ads. This step is helpful when deciding whether to launch a campaign into new markets. The key is to be sure your control markets mirror the make-up of your test market. That includes things like demographics, category attitudes, similar competitive set, market share, and market size.

Consumers don’t think about your products and services in isolation. When measuring ad effectiveness, be sure to capture key metrics for your close competitors for comparison. When analyzing the results, it’s also helpful to weave in information on media spending levels, reach, and frequency for both your ad and competitors.

Effective advertising is an essential way to support and nurture brand awareness and perceptions, though the cost can often be hard to justify. That’s why it’s important to gather consumer feedback on the impact of your advertising efforts with brand experience research. Doing so will provide critical information about what’s working well, what needs improving, and why. By measuring ad effectiveness and gaining insights on your target audience, you can be sure your budget is optimized, and money is spent on the most effective advertising specifically tailored for your company’s needs.

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