So, you’ve finally launch the campaign you’ve poured weeks of hard work into. Nicely done – but the work doesn’t end here. It’s now time to analyze the results! When it comes to measuring advertising campaign performance, you’ve got countless indicators to choose from. But which ones are most important and, above all, which ones should be prioritized for your goals?
Do you work in marketing or are you head of branding for a company? Do you work in an agency, managing campaigns for advertisers?
If so, you’ll definitely be faced with the challenge of measuring the performance of your advertising campaigns.
In an ideal world, all your campaigns are completed perfectly in all aspects. Your audience will be shedding tears of joy at the mere sight of your advertisements and is begging you to let them buy your product.
Let’s get back to reality – advertising and the public are a little more complicated than that.
Your campaigns don’t all enjoy the same success. To improve the return on investment for your actions, it’s absolutely essential that you identify those which are performing the best, so you can then figure out why.
You could just dive in blinding, like you’re Indiana Jones in the jungle without a compass, but you’d be risking spending precious hours going round in circles (not ideal in either real jungles or the jungle that is the world of advertising).
To avoid that, simply select the right KPIs (key performance indicators) and kit yourself out with an effective tool to measure them.
Let’s take a look at all that in detail, as we uncover the 5 essential KPIs for your advertising campaigns.
OVERVIEW
Indicator #1 - Degree of memorization
What is the degree of memorization?
Memorization is when an individual remembers being exposed to a specific advertising campaign.
Of course, this indicator is hugely influenced by the quality of your broadcast. The messaging, visuals and formats used are key factors for memorization potential.
Message repetition also has a determining factor. The more frequent the broadcasting, the better the chances of the audience remembering your campaign.
We’ve also noted (and it seems so logical) that individual personal interest in your product or service also boosts memorization.
The aim of the degree of memorization is therefore to measure the percentage of the population exposed that has really remembered your advertising campaign.
How to calculate the degree of memorization
By definition, the degree of memorization is calculated solely for the population exposed to your campaign.
To do this, we establish a ratio between the number of people having memorized your campaign and the number of people who were exposed to it.
Analyzing the degree of memorization
If you have a high degree of memorization, that means that the broadcast, the targeting and the capping for your campaign were all particularly effective.
It’s been memorized by a high number of individuals who have potentially been positively impacted by your brand.
This indicator helps you to identify what works best for you, so you can then replicate the winning formula used for campaigns with the highest degree of memorization.
A low degree of memorization may be associated with poor targeting and/or capping definition. Your messaging and/or visuals and/or the formats used just haven’t managed to sufficiently catch the attention of your target audience.
In this case, it’s so important to measure and analyze this indicator by post-testing each campaign, in order to avoid coming across the same strategic or creative issues in future.
Indicator #2 - Brand attribution rate
What is the attribution rate?
Attribution is the capacity for an individual to retain the brand name or the product to which they were exposed.
According to several studies, we receive 500 to 2,000 advertising messages each day.
Given this volume, it’s totally understandable that we sometimes struggle to remember the exact brand behind an advertisement we’ve been exposed to.
That’s where the attribution rate comes into play. It aim is to allow you to understand to what degree your audience is really making the connection between your campaign and your brand.
So, we usually say that this indicator is a way you can evaluate the general attention your advertisement has from an audience.
How to calculate the attribution rate
To calculate the attribution rate, we ask advertising post-test respondents to name the brand which they think is behind this campaign.
Don’t overlook the opportunity of measuring the attribution rate for both an exposed population and a non-exposed population.
Why?
Because, this way, you’ll be able to compare the results of both populations. You’ll then have a better insight into your brand universe’s capacity to influence attribution.
Of course, some brands do have universes that are so well-founded that they can be instantly recognized by the audience. Will you be one of them?
Analyzing the attribution rate
A high attribution rate means that your brand universe is sufficiently recognizable.
Your graphic universe, your tone of voice and all the other communications are showcased well through the campaign. The audience then has little difficulty in attributing the advertising message to your brand.
The benefits of your campaign for your brand awareness and marketing and sales performance are sure to be significant.
A low attribution rate indicates that your brand universe isn’t established enough in your advertising.
Your campaign is suffering from an identity deficit. Perhaps your communication assets aren’t optimally used or your brain is struggling to stamp its image on the market.
The less clear the attribution, the less your campaign will benefit your brand. In some cases, an excessively low attribution rate can indirectly benefit competitor brands.
This indicator will help you to understand whether you need to develop your creative strategy for future campaigns, or identify whether you’ve really found the winning combination for making your brand unforgettable.
In this example, the award rate is 11 points above the benchmark.
Indicator #3 - Likability
What is likability?
We use likability to define the level of appreciation for an advertising message that an individual has been exposed to.
Here, you’re looking to determine the way your campaign was received by the audience. Was the overall impression positive or negative?
The likability score is a good indicator for judging the quality of your creation, its content and even the relevance of the broadcasting format.
Plus, likability systematically has a strong influence on your degree of memorization.
How to calculate likability
The advertising likability can be measured in the form of a score, rate or index.
In any case, the methodology for measuring it is the same. During campaign post-testing, you’ll ask respondents to score your advertisement using a scale, numbers or in terms of impression levels.
Analyzing likability
A high likability means that your advertising message was liked and appreciated.
From this, you can confirm that the combination of creation and format chosen were effective. You’ve succeeded in generating support from the exposed individuals.
It’s therefore more likely that this campaign will have positive impacts on your brand reputation and your sales performances.
A low likability is a sign that your advertisement didn’t win over the people who saw it.
It’s therefore highly recommended that you then optimize your creation and/or broadcasting format for your campaign.
Effectively, a campaign with a low likability won’t have the sales impact you’d hope for, and may even have a negative effect on your brand image.
This indicator contributes to giving you qualitative feedback on broadcasting for your campaign from the perspective of the general audience impression.
Indicator #4 - The consideration rate
What is the consideration rate?
The consideration represents the fact that, when faced with a need or potential purchase, the individual exposed to an advertising campaign will consider the brand or product as a potential response.
In this case, we want to measure the impact of the advertising memory on purchasing consideration. This means understanding to what degree a campaign broadcast and memorized by an individual will impact their consideration for your brand or product.
The consideration rate is strongly influenced by the quality of your brand image. The better your brand reputation and the more positive it is, the higher your consideration rate will be.
The most commonly named brands for being top-of-mind therefore naturally tend to get better scores in terms of consideration.
How to calculate the consideration rate
The consideration rate is measured in post-testing by directly surveying the individuals exposed.
We’ll ask them to score using a value scale the likelihood of them considering your brand or product as a potential solution for responding to a particular need.
Based on the scores obtained, you’ll get an average consideration rate.
We calculate this indicate both on a population that has been exposed to your advertising message and on another that has not been exposed to it. This way, we can measure more precisely the real impact of the campaign on consideration.
Here at Happydemics, we offer two additional indicators. Positive consideration and negative consideration. They allow you to highlight extreme scores.
Analyzing the consideration rate
A high consideration rate for your campaign means that it’s had a positive impact on your brand image.
It shows that you’ve boosted brand awareness, image and/or persuasion so that exposed individuals will see your brand as a response to a specific need.
Positive consideration for your brand therefore has a direct impact on your company’s sales performances.
If your consideration rate is negative or split, well, that means your campaign has had more of a negative or insufficient impact in terms of brand image.
Your brand reputation has probably taken a hit, too. The message hasn’t landed as it was intended: Positioning yourself as one of the best potential responses to the need of your target audience.
So, you’ll need to identify the reasons behind this counter-performance in order to implement corrective actions and avoid continuing to put out low-consideration rate campaigns.
In any case, you’ll need to analyze the discrepancy between the consideration rate of the population exposed and that of the population non-exposed to your campaign. It’s the best way to understand the impact of a campaign, particularly on the consideration for your brand.
This indicator directly impacts purchase intent, so it’s vital to measure and monitor it by post-testing your campaigns.
Indicator #5 - Purchase intent
What is purchase intent?
Purchase intent is the most advanced indicator in the marketing funnel. It’s directly linked to sales performances.
Effectively, not all advertising campaigns are aimed at boosting brand awareness. In most cases, they’ll seek to incite the purchase of a product or service.
The purchase intent therefore measures the percentage of individuals exposed to your campaign who anticipate making a purchase from your brand in the short term.
This indicator reflects both the overall efficacy of the campaign and the product- or individual-specific impressions. We’ll gain an insight into the manifestation of a reed and the level of knowledge regarding the options available on the market.
How to calculate the purchase intent
The purchase intent is measured in a declarative way during the advertising campaign’s post-testing.
We’ll survey an exposed population and a non-exposed population, asking them to specify what type of interaction they’d be prepared to have with your brand. One of the options, of course, will be to purchase one of your products or services. We can also give respondents the option to choose from a list of brands which brand they’d make a purchase from.
The comparison between the two groups and exposed and non-exposed individuals is important. It allows you to measure the discrepancy in purchase intent. It’s an additional way of understanding to what degree your campaign has really impacted responses.
Analyzing purchase intent
A high purchase intent score means that your campaign has overall been successful in all of its components.
The messaging, creation, targeting, format or even the broadcasting have performed well for the audience.
A low purchase intent score is a sign that your campaign was lacking in impact. Its performance is limited which reduces its potential influences on purchasing actions.
Whatever the result, you can use other advertising performance indicators to identify more precisely which elements of the campaign are responsible for its success or failure in regard to purchase intent.
You should also bear in mind that the purchase intent is significantly dependent on the market in which you’re working. Some markets or products record scores much higher than others.
That’ why it’s important to compare your measurements with the averages for your business sector or those of similar brands.
For this, we use benchmarks that will integrate additional data into your post-test analysis. You can then position your performances against the averages, based on criteria that aligns with your context (business sector, product type, broadcasting format, etc.).
In this example, the gap between memos and non-memos is significant (17 points). But the campaign generates less intent than the average campaign in the benchmark (-25 points).
In this article, we’ve revealed to you the 5 essential indicators for measuring the performance of your advertising campaigns. They’re not the only ones, though? There are countless other indicators that can enable you to carry out customized post-testing based on your own goals.
You need KPIs to measure your advertising performance? Use Happydemics to launch brand lift measurement and more!
