One of the day-one promises of the internet was that everything could be measured, especially advertising ... and today we really can!
Actually we've been able to measure all internet activity all the time, but it took so much effort to actually analyse what was measured that very few people went further then counting visitors (or worse 'hits') on their site. Today tools such as 'doubleclick' or Google's adword programme allow us to measure advertising performance all the way to the sale: impressions (how many people saw my ad), clicks and of the viewers and clickers, how many actually bought something on my site, how much did they buy, and which turnover did this generate. It can all be measured. And if you link all that info up to some kind of database, you can even identify the audience profile or the individual behaviour of a single person. WOW!
We actively track most of these numbers for a number of our clients. We don't necessary go as far as linking respondents up with a database, but we do track in detail every impression or click on every banner on every site and how much sales it generated for our clients. We learn a lot from that, especially about the performance of one or the other site. We get a fantastic insight in the RESPONSE campaigns generate.
BUT ...
Recently one of our clients decided to measure even more ... how about: "What did people think about our on online campaign?" That's not a silly question :-)
Even better, the campaign was post-tested together with it's "traditional" counterpart, which was a radio campaign. Knowing that radio is considered very much of a response-medium in the traditional advertising world, the results of the test promised to be interresting.
So what was measured here? How about:
- How many people in the target group actually saw your campaign, and I mean REALLY saw it, not just gettin the Opportunity To See it!
- And if they saw it, did it touch them in some way, did they understand it?
- And if it did, was there a significant impact on how they think about your brand or on they purchase behaviour.
Let me share just a few interresting findings:
- The online campaign proved complimentary to the radio campaign by attracting a younger audience. Good info for future media planning.
- Although the click-through of the campaign was considerably above average, many people disliked the creative material because of ... the background color.
- A radio spot that can't be skipped is considered less annoying then a banner you are not obliged to look at ... (more about this later).
Conclusion, there is indeed a lot more we can measure, and it's extremely relevant. But to come to this conclusion marketers must realise that the internet is not only a response medium, but also extremely strong to truely work on branding and fundamental consumer behaviour. It's not just clicks, it's about PEOPLE!
