Co-founder of newage digital agency. Aleksey Lyakh talks about how to measure the effectiveness of media advertising and why online videos are better than TV.
How to Measure Creative Effectiveness
For the last 7 years, advertising budgets in Uanet have been growing. The promo shows the advantages of the product, which creates demand for it. But not all creatives work well: one ad is read by the user without problems, the other is doomed to failure.
We at newage. have developed a Comprehensive display ad analysis that measures the effectiveness of online advertising.
Huge advertising budgets are being spent, and the market is not able to measure the effectiveness of these investments, we decided to fix this.
For analysis, we use display and technometric indicators: the number of hits, hosts, cookies, browsers identified with the site and with advertising. Media metrics show ad reach and brand awareness, while technometry is the actual work with data.
It gives an understanding of how the user behaved after interacting with the ad:
- what pages the user visited,
- how many times,
- what time of day.
We can track the entire chain of his actions – from the first contact to further purchases. Often brands only analyze data that shows the behavior of a person after clicking on an ad. It confuses and sets the wrong priorities.
The user’s path to purchase is much more complicated than “saw an ad, clicked on it and bought it.”
For example, a person returns from work, prepares a sandwich and tea for himself, sits down near the computer, turns on his favorite series and sees an advertisement for a smartphone. For him, it is relevant, because he has long wanted a new phone. But now he will not give up everything to go to the site.
Therefore, when studying the effectiveness of advertising, it is important to take into account delayed target actions – post-click and post-view. This is data on whether the people who were in contact with the ad returned to the advertiser’s site after some time.
Everything is individual here: in the case of BMW advertising, two days are not enough for a person to buy a car, but in the case of pizza, it’s completely.
Before a full-fledged launch of the campaign, it is imperative to test the creative in order to understand in time whether it works or not. Thanks to this, you can optimize the campaign by 30-50%.
Peculiarities of Display Online Advertising
- Display advertising generates demand for new products, services, goods. Until a person knows that a new BMW model has come out, he does not want to buy it. If a person is told about the benefits, this will cause interest.
- Display advertising is measurable. You can analyze the data and understand if the ad worked.
- Display advertising involves visual and audio contact. Advertising can be shown with a picture, signed with subtitles and voiced, which involves the user more.
- Internet advertising is targeted. You can choose who exactly you want to show ads to – dog owners, sports enthusiasts, or those who have recently googled smartphones.
- You can interact with media advertising in digital. The user can click on it and go to the site to immediately learn more about the product or service there.
If you need some effective banners for your campaign, check our design page or just write: “We need to talk about banners” to info@newage.agency
Case 1. Rabota.ua
To advertise the Rabota.ua website, we launched two banners. The purpose of both is to remind people of what we have already shown them. For example, a person watched a movie on the weekend, saw an advertisement for Rabota.ua and became interested. I thought, “Really, I need to update my resume.” But things piled up on Monday, and he forgot. The purpose of such banners is to remind them of what they have already seen.
The first was an exact replica of a video creative that the user had most likely seen before. Here they relied on the fact that the repetition of the picture will work (the technique is often used to enhance the media impact).
On the second banner, we highlighted specific professions in close-up and showed the level of their salaries. The creative is similar to the first option, but should have been more interesting. And so it happened.
The percentage of clicks on the second banner (the number of people who were exposed to the ad) is significantly higher: 5.2% versus 4.2%. In the calculation, we also took into account post-click, and post-view.
There is no universal recipe for why one display ad works better than another. We can only guess. Each creative needs to be measured, analyzed, what comes in more and promote the favorites. In this case, for example, it is logical to bet on the second banner.
Ad creative is an important part of advertising. They attract attention, show the product and brand, and convey the value of the offer. Read our instructions on how to make an effective display banner.
Case 2. Comfy
To advertise Comfy, we launched four similar ads based on an absurd play on words based on proverbs.
Dove
Banana
Basket
All videos were played with the same parameters and for the same audience. The main difference is in creativity. Banana and Basket worked best. The percentage of switching to them is 4.6% and 6%, respectively.
Often, the effectiveness of a creative is analyzed by the screening parameter. This is not entirely correct. In this case, we see that there is no correlation between what works better and what is better watched. For example, the Dove roller has the best screening, but its overall effectiveness is not high. And Basket has an average screening and the largest transition.
After analyzing all this data a week after the launch of the campaign, we came to the conclusion that the most effective video is Banana. He was well inspected and had an above-average percentage of referrals.
If the issue of creative for advertising is relevant for you, read our article “How do you know which creative works best? Test.”
Case 3. Pizza 33
Here we also launched two banners. The first is an advertisement for the institution’s loyalty program. Orange background, flashing text and message: “Not enough money? Buy with points!”
The second is just a pizza ad. On a white calm background, we placed a close-up of a product with an indication of the real price and the call to “Order”.
The second example showed the best conversion rate: 1.5% versus 0.6%. Most likely, because it is more relaxed in design, demonstrates a real product and calls for an order. We have optimized the campaign by turning off what works worse.
Case 4. Olx
There were two creative videos in OLX. First — the usual one:
And the second one was alternative:
First we showed the first, then turned on the second. It worked better, the difference in their efficiency is about 30%. But it happened in this particular case: it cannot be said that extraordinary videos are more successful for advertising, it happens and vice versa.
Conclusions
- Although TV has more coverage, but a young and solvent audience on the Internet.
- We can measure digital. If you buy 1000 impressions, you can be sure that 1000 people will see your ad. In offline advertising, you cannot be sure of views.
- The number allows you to personalize the message. There is a lot of user data on the Internet, so ads can be targeted to the people you need. And on TV, streaming video is spread out for everyone.
