In this digital age and hyper-competitive global markets, advertising has become extremely complicated. Marketers and companies are not following only one form of marketing. Nowadays, marketers and businesses are using multiple marketing channels to attract their target audiences and comparing which advertising method is more successful can become a challenge. However, this is an important task that must be done by every company. Advertising and marketing is not inexpensive and knowing which methods are giving the best results can make advertising more successful and cost-effective.
Common methodology
The most common and old school methods that marketers use to find the effectiveness of various advertising campaigns is the survey method. Here, marketers ask respondents questions after they have launched an advertising campaign. This advertising campaign could be on televisions, magazines, billboards, online, etc. and respondents are asked whether they have seen the campaign or not and are categorically divided into two groups – exposed to the campaign and unexposed to the campaign.
This method may not be very accurate but is simple and can allow marketers to decide which campaigns to drop and which to keep. Another method checks the opportunities that people have to see the ads. Either respondents are asked about how they consume media or cookies send back browser data to marketers to understand their online media consumption methods. If people are consuming the right kind of media but not at the times that the advertising campaigns were ran means that the campaign is not getting expected results.
Knowing how and when people are consuming media allows marketers to make their campaigns better. These two methods do not offer very accurate results although they work for any type of advertising campaigns. Marketers often run advertising campaigns on many platforms like the internet, print, etc. and use these methods to figure out which channel they should stick to.
Other methods being used
Many companies do not have the money or manpower to run surveys. Instead they use some simple methods to check which advertising is working best for them. One such method is giving customers discounts when they mention ads. Marketers place the sentence “Mention this ad to get a discount” on their ads. So when customers purchase from them, they mention exactly where they saw the ad – on TV, in a magazine or newspaper, online, or any other medium. This allows marketers to figure out which medium is best delivering their ads to people.
