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Measuring the effectiveness of traditional advertising channels—like television and radio—is a unique challenge because there is no inherent way to attribute sales to specific ad campaigns. Due to this challenge, advertisers must rely on a variety of tools to aid them in determining the effectiveness of an advertisement or campaign. This post will explain two tools that GeoPoll provides and how they solve common attribution problems that advertisers face.
Audience Measurement Tracking
Although audience measurement metrics alone cannot provide a map of a customer’s journey from noticing an ad through to purchase, it is important to measure these metrics for ad campaigns so we know how many people had the opportunity to see or hear the ad, and how many times they had that opportunity. Gross rating points (GRP’s), share, reach, CPM, and other similar audience measurement metrics are key determinants of an ad placement’s performance and a campaign cannot be deemed effective if it falls short here.
GeoPoll’s audience measurement platform is a powerful tool for advertisers evaluating campaign performance in this way due to the post-campaign evaluation tool. This tool allows the user to input the campaign’s proof of flighting data, then the tool calculates and provides the GRP’s for each individual ad and the campaign as a whole. This enables a quick and easy adjustment of a media planning strategy that can even be made mid-campaign.
The information provided by GeoPoll’s post-campaign evaluation tool is important for evaluating advertising effectiveness, but it only tells us who had the opportunity to see or hear the ad. To determine if they actually noticed it, paid attention, and acted in response to it we need to conduct attribution research.
Attribution Research
In the advertising industry, you may hear attribution tracking research referred to as other terms like Each of these are types of attribution research, typically focusing on specific metrics, KPI’s, or particular communication tactics.
Attribution research attempts to measure the changes in consumer behavior that can be attributed to a particular channel or a specific campaign. In fact, “More than 60% of client-side marketers agree that ‘surveys to test advertising effectiveness provide a strong indication of the success of an advertising campaign,’ and 54% agree that these surveys are essential to advertising validation.” It is essentially a test of the campaign’s media mix, creative, and content—as well as the appeal of the product or service being advertised. Failure or underperformance in any of these areas impacts the effectiveness of a campaign, regardless of how much reach and frequency is achieved.
GeoPoll’s attribution research experience
GeoPoll has extensive experience with a range of attribution research projects. From tracking KPI’s over 11 weeks to monitor the effectiveness of a TV campaign for a major FMCG brand in Nigeria, to tracking behavioral changes among small farmers in Ghana in response to an NGO’s social awareness radio campaign—GeoPoll research experts have done it all.
Attribution research of this nature is tailored on a project-by-project basis based on what the client is intending to find out. However, in most of the studies GeoPoll conducts, consumers are interviewed through their mobile phones in two or more waves. The first wave precedes the campaign launch to establish the baseline against which movement in metrics can be measured, then the subsequent waves seek to answer attribution research questions like these:
– Did the target consumers have the opportunity to see or hear ads from the campaign?
– Did target consumers notice the ads from the campaign?
– Did target consumers recall the product or service that was advertised?
– Did the ad provoke consumers to take the desired action?
The feedback received from these surveys can be analyzed to build an understanding of which marketing initiatives within a campaign drove sales and which initiatives did not. This analysis uncovers the cause and effect relationship between an ad and a sale, allowing organizations to understand the returns on investment that were received from a campaign.
GeoPoll’s research experts are always available to assist in these projects, whether that means identifying the KPI’s to be measured, developing a questionnaire, analyzing resulting data, or anything in between. To learn more about GeoPoll’s custom attribution tracking research solutions, contact us today.