Evaluation of Advertising Effectiveness

In the world of cut-throat competition, merely having an appealing and professional advertisement is not enough to penetrate into the market and reach to the right target audience. Most of the advertising budget is spent on pre-testing the ads, and much less on measuring their effectiveness. The success of any advertisement depends on good planning, implementation and control, which itself is dependent on advertising effectiveness. In simple words, an advertisement campaign is incomplete without evaluating its effectiveness. Measuring advertising effectiveness is the only way of determining how well the advertisement is performing in the market, is it reaching the right set of audience, and is the goals achieved.

However, it is not possible to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of marketing strategy advertising. There are several factors that affect effectiveness measurement like building brand image, launching a new product, increasing sales, brand awareness, etc, which makes it an intricate process to accurately and precisely evaluate the effectiveness of advertisements. Despite of this fact, there are several companies, who advertise very rarely, yet their brand is a hit in the market; while there are companies who indulge into implementing extensive advertising and marketing strategies, yet cannot generate the desired results. Why it is so??

In simple words, this is because the companies invested more effort and time in evaluating advertising effectiveness rather than unnecessarily exaggerating the promotional content. Having evaluated the effectiveness of an advertisement, it becomes easier to pin-point where the ad is lagging behind and how to improve its reach and effectiveness better. Today, there are several traditional and modern methods of evaluating advertising effectiveness, which help the marketing advertising company to analyze how the ad or the brand is performing in the market.

Methods of Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness

Communication Effect Research and Sales Effect Research are two major traditional methods of evaluating advertising effectiveness. On the other hand, modern approaches include Analysis Tool and Integrated Direct Marketing.

1. Communication Effect Research

• Portfolio Tests – The customers see and listen carefully to the ads, and then they are asked to recall the content of the advertisement. Calculations are done based on such data
• Direct Rating Method – The customers are asked directly to rate the advertisement, and these ratings are calculated
• Laboratory Tests – To measure the physiological reactions of customers after seeing an ad, an apparatus is used to measure blood pressure, heart rate, perspiration, etc.

2. Sales Effect Research

The effectiveness of the ad is evaluated on the basis of the sales figure of the company, through questionnaires, product surveys, recognition tests, toll free numbers, and response rates.

3. Analysis Tool

For online advertisements, analysis tool is used to measure customer visits, how many pages are viewed, who are buying online, etc which helps the marketers to determine its effectiveness.

4. Integrated Direct Marketing

This is a modern web-based tool, which provides a response corner on the websites, where the customers can leave their feedback.

Whether it is television, brochures, radio, business cards, or online advertising, evaluating its effectiveness is intrinsically important to determine its performance and reach.