Assessing the Advertising Program

Once you’ve executed your advertising program, you may be thinking that you’re done. However, the decision-making process still has one more critical component: assessment. The advertisements that have been so carefully developed and designed need to be evaluated to make sure they are accomplishing their goals and meeting their objectives.

Post-Testing

Post-testing evaluates the effectiveness and impact of a campaign, whether it is still running or has ended. These insights can then help inform future advertising programs. Post-testing can take many different approaches. Several of the most common are:

Aided Recall

Aided recall can be measured using copy tests, a tool that helps identify and fix ads that may not connect with the intended audience. One such test is the Starch test, which determines how many people recall seeing the ad in general, whether they specifically recall seeing any part of the ad that mentioned the brand or product, whether they read any of the ad copy, and whether they read more than half the copy.

This technique is known as “aided recall” because the participants are given a copy of the ad to help them remember if they had encountered it previously.

Unaided Recall

As opposed to aided recall, which provides the test group with the ad itself, unaided recall depends solely on memory, not cues.

Participants are asked open-ended questions such as “what ads did you see yesterday” or “name all the cell phone manufacturers you can think of” to gauge the effectiveness of the ad being studied.

Attitude Tests

A type of progress testing, attitude tests determine if the advertising was successful in improving the person’s perception of the product. Generally, the attitude is measured by rating it using a scale such as the Likert, Thurstone, Guttman or differential scale. 

Inquiry Tests

Inquiry tests involve offering additional information, samples or premiums to ad viewers. For example, issuing rebate coupons that need to be filled out and sent back to the company. The number of generated inquiries corresponds to the most effective advertising campaigns.

Sales Tests

Perhaps you are familiar with the term A/B testing. In A/B testing, a single element of an ad is changed to see which ad (Ad A or Ad B) performs better. The experiment is then repeated, testing different elements until the ideal ad has been created.

A/B testing is an example of a sales test. Experiments, along with consumer purchase tests, make up the bulk of sales testing techniques. By manipulating an advertising variable (which is now much easier in the digital age) data can be collected and analyzed.

Making Changes

Once there is sufficient data on the ads’ effectiveness, changes can be made to the advertising program. Ads that perform poorly with respect to awareness, cost efficiency or sales may be discontinued. Ads with tepid results may be tweaked so that they get better results, and advertisements that do particularly well may become the basis for entire advertising  programs. 

For example, the Absolut vodka brand had a measly 2.5 percent market share when the company began running ads based on its bottle’s shape. What started as an experiment became the longest uninterrupted ad campaign in history (25 years), featuring over 1,500 ads—including one designed by Andy Warhol. By the time the company retired the campaign, Absolut’s market share was more than 50 percent.

Advertising used to be relatively static. With the advent of digital marketing, ads can constantly be repurposed, reskinned and reworked. For these changes to be implemented effectively, careful assessment is essential. Relying on post-testing data and metrics allows advertising to evolve alongside potential customers. 

Find Out if Your Marketing Program is Working with ThreeSixty

If your digital advertising campaigns haven’t been working out as you’d hoped, let ThreeSixty analyze your current metrics and then work with you to create better ads that will get you quantitative, measurable results. To learn more about what our digital marketing team can do for your business, visit our website.