Measuring Ad Effectiveness.

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A formula for advertising success.

Attention

ATTENTION measures how well an ad is remembered.

The first priority for an ad is to break through the clutter and get noticed. While attention alone does not ensure a good return on your advertising investment, there is no possibility of a good return without it.

Branding

BRANDING measures how well an ad is linked with a brand.

The second priority for an ad is to increase overall brand awareness and salience. Even if some specifics of an ad are not remembered, leaving a positive impression of the brand delivers some return on ad investment.

Communication

COMMUNICATION is about delivering a strategic message.

When ads effectively deliver a strategic message, the ability to deliver a good return on investment increases substantially. Of course, this assumes that your strategic message is well vetted, and truly relevant to consumers.

Desire

DESIRE measures motivation to learn more and purchase.

The last mile of advertising effectiveness is desire. Once consumers indicate they want to learn more about (and possibly purchase) a brand, the return on advertising investment can increase dramatically.

Measuring ad effectiveness: A history

Before the onset of digital media, the measures described on this page were commonly used by most leading national advertisers to gauge ad effectiveness. As digital media became more popular, more advertisers came to believe that clicks were a better measure of digital ad sucess. However, recent studies have raised questions about the relevance of ad clicks, especially for off-line sales. These studies have shown that ads with high click-through rates are not associated with better off-line performance - not with off-line sales, not with ad recall, not with brand awareness, and not with purchase interest (learn more). Brand Chek ad pre-testing tools allow advertisers to evaluate the off-line effectiveness of their ads.

Learn more about testing ads in various media formats - including social media feeds, video pre-roll, TV, and print.