The Signal Hill Insights team runs brand lift studies on a lot of ad campaigns – more and more every year. And, to be frank, not every one drives the lifts that the advertiser – and publisher  – were looking for. 

On the one hand, you might say that’s the law of averages at work. But it also smarts a little when it’s your campaign, or your show. 

It’s important to keep in mind that brand lift measurement shouldn’t just be a report card. Instead it’s a opportunity for learning and optimization. 

In my experience, one of the most valuable features of the brand lift methodology is that it tells you why a campaign performed the way it did, not just how. That’s because a good brand lift study contains a series of individual metrics that test different aspects of the campaign, informing not just its performance across the consumer journey, but also the consumer’s response. This latter point is what helps you unlock friction or barriers that can remain stubbornly hidden when only looking at conversion metrics, like clicks, web landings or purchases.

Let’s look at four common problem results, and how to leverage the insights you can mine from them:

Not Much Lift in the Top of the Funnel: Awareness and Familiarity

It seems so fundamental. You put all this money and effort into an ad campaign, and yet you didn’t really move the needle on basic awareness. What’s up with that?

Take a step back and assess your brand. Is it a near household name? Or maybe it’s just very well known among the target audience. If you’re not sure, your brand lift results will provide some guidance. 

Brand lift measures the difference in perception between consumers who heard your ad – the exposed cell – and consumers who didn’t – the control cell. Here’s where it’s instructive to look at that control cell’s score. What percentage of those consumers are aware of your brand? This takes the temperature of your existing brand health in the marketplace. If that number is above 50%, then your brand is getting well known.

One consequence of successful brand building is that you have to work a little harder, and maybe a little more cleverly, to continue stacking on top of that success. If your pre-existing awareness is north of 75%, then focusing on this objective might not be the best use of resource – you might drive more impact down the funnel. Under that 75%, consider thinking like an emerging brand, and read on.

What if your brand is emerging? You’re seeing those control scores under the half-way point, and still not seeing much lift. Time to get back to basics. Go back and assess your creative. How many times is your brand mentioned? If it’s less than three times, then you need more reinforcement, at the beginning, middle and end of the copy, not just the middle or close.

Also, think about the brand’s name itself. Is it easy to spell and remember? Is it a variation on a common word, or is it unusual? Something new and different often needs more reinforcement. And if it’s not spelled phonetically, or drops a vowel (BTW the 2000s, Tumblr and Flickr are calling), consider spelling it out in the ad – maybe more than once.

You’d be surprised to learn how often these simple tactics are missed, simply because you know your own brand too well.

Not Enough Consideration

Maybe you’re seeing nice lifts at the top of the funnel, in awareness and familiarity. But you really want to consumers to consider your brand. So, why aren’t they? 

First, ask, why should a consumer consider your brand? Are those reasons in the ad?

They seem like basic and obvious questions, but you’d be surprised how often we see campaigns that overlook those value propositions. They spend a lot of copy on what the brand is and what it’s about, but run out of time to explain why someone should choose it. Pick a reason, or two (but not three or four), and get them into your ad.

To be sure that’s working, continue on to gauge the effectiveness of your messaging.

Was My Message Received?

A well-constructed brand lift study should have a question on message association. It’s where you really start to uncover why you’re seeing specific results.

Ideally, that message is a phrase or tagline unique to the brand, and it appears in the ad. 

When you see lifts in message association, you know that message is being heard, and it’s sticky. It’s also an indication that your brand is getting more sticky, too.

If you’re not seeing much lift – meaning the audience exposed to your ad doesn’t associate it with your brand any more than those who didn’t hear it – then your message is not cutting through. One problem could be repetition. Often taglines only get mentioned at the ad’s closer – hence the “tag” part of the name – but that can hobble memorability. Try adding it to the intro, too. 

Another problem is clarity and differentiation. Imagine a credit card’s tagline is “you can buy stuff with it.” We’ve seen messages pretty close to that for a variety of vercials, and they don’t work. Make your message unique. Want to double check? Try Googling it. You’ll be surprised how often we’ve found competitors using essentially the same language as the brands we’re testing.

When you see hang ups in messaging, that gives you a strong indication as to why your campaign might not be working further down the funnel. Your ads might not be giving consumers something clear to hang on to, and to remember. If they’re not remembering, they’re less likely to consider or buy.

Are You Making a Clear Statement?

Your brand lift questionnaire also ought to include brand statements or attributes. These are things about the brand or product you want consumers to understand or retain. They should be clearly understood or easily concluded from the ad. 

Statements and attributes are different than the tagline. For instance, McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” is a brand message or tagline, while “100% Angus Beef” would be a statement or attribute. 

This tests how well the ad is doing the job of educating consumers, helping them take away what you want them to know and understand.

One of the most common mistakes we see is when a brand kitchen-sinks their ad, cramming in three, four, five, or more features or benefits. The problem is that the litany can turn into just a raging current of words washing over the audience. 

The peanut butter is “scrumptious,” “creamiest,” “every mom’s favorite,” “packed with protein,” “low in sodium,” “has less sugar,” and is, “priced less than the other brands.” Which one do you want consumers to remember?

Such a lack of focus is easily seen in brand lift results, where we’re testing a kitchen sink of statements, and none of them see much lift. This also tends to correlate with weak mid-funnel measures. If consumers don’t associate key features, benefits and attributes with your brand then there’s not much motivation to consider it or have purchase intent.

Even if your campaign is very focused on conversions, knowing what attributes stick in consumers’ minds – and which don’t – reveals why perhaps those clicks and purchases aren’t happening. 

The best remedy is focus. Choose just one or two key qualities, features or benefits, and reinforce them in the ad. If going for more than one, choose two that are related or synergistic. For our peanut butter, “scrumptious” and “creamiest” and more alike than “priced less” and “has less sugar.”  Give consumers a clear, unmissable reason to check you out, and it’s more likely they will. 

The best ads we’ve tested are clearly focused on one or two objectives, and it’s something we see in brand lift results. This doesn’t mean ads need to be didactic, pedantic and boring. In fact, it’s often humour and novelty that helps reinforce the message and make it stand out. 

Brand lift’s superpower is that you’re asking consumer’s directly about their perceptions of your brand. You don’t have to guess what they’re taking in and remembering – they tell us. That means even suboptimal results supply a plethora of diagnostics to help sharpen and optimize campaigns. 

Want to know more about how brand lift diagnoses your campaign performance? Dive into “3 Reasons Your Host-Read Ad Creative Is Not Working.”