Ad effectiveness research, like brand lift, should pay for itself. As a dyed-in-the-wool researcher I find enormous intrinsic value in research, but application is where research comes alive. It’s also how the bills get paid.

Brand lift ad effectiveness pays for itself in two big ways. 

First, brand lift helps podcasts and networks secure campaign buys. Often that’s because a brand or agency has made brand lift a necessary component of an RFP. Other times, maybe when a buyer hasn’t brought it up, forward-thinking sales teams know when and how to offer brand lift for campaigns that have branding objectives at their core. Having brand lift in your pitch deck also signals your team is ahead of the curve, ready to provide crucial brand metrics from the get-go. We have advice for making sure your podcast and network are ready. 

Second, brand lift helps secure renewals. Brand lift is proof of performance, and confirmation that ad money was well spent. But that’s only scratching the surface. In a competitive marketplace proof of performance is just table stakes. Your advantage lies in leveraging data, evidence and insights that explain the “why” behind the “what.”

Here are four ways you can use brand lift studies to leverage the “why,” getting that next campaign over the line.

Understand the Story Behind the Stats

Remember, brand lift studies come from surveys of real people who watch or hear real ads, and they respond to those ads for reasons that we can uncover. We learn how a campaign influenced their perceptions and opinions of a brand, and what, exactly, resonates about the ads. These are keys to understanding how and why they work.

When you’re preparing a campaign wrap report you have to include the basic stats, like the placements included, impressions delivered, and, if you have them, performance metrics. But you’re in a much stronger position when you have a story – a narrative that explains why the campaign had impact. Brand lift prepares you with insights like:

This campaign really appealed to young women, who were much more likely than an older demo to associate the campaign messaging with the brand. 

We know a host’s personal endorsement of the product was particularly effective, because a majority of their listeners said they had a more favorable opinion of the brand because they sponsored the show.

The audiences that agreed the brand offers a good value were those who heard the ad creatives focused on comparative pricing and savings.

You’re also prepared with evidence to answer advertisers’ questions:

Why did one show outperform another?

Why didn’t we see lifts in consideration, even though we saw lifts in awareness?

Why did listeners respond to this message?

Being educated and prepared instills confidence in buyers that you’re prepared to show, not just tell. You demonstrate that you’re invested in deeply understanding what’s driving their success.

Fuel Conversations About Optimization

If only every ad campaign were just a matter of rinse-and-repeat, what a simple world it would be. Of course, in the real world nothing stands still for long. And even the best ad campaign could use improvements. 

As an ad seller it’s your job to be the advertiser’s guide, to help them make well-informed, data-driven planning decisions for their next go round. Brand lift results provide you with that roadmap for offering advice and optimizations to tighten up performance.

It’s not just about choosing one show or target over another, it’s about analyzing why it performed, or didn’t quite meet every expectation. Maybe the messaging needs tweaking to fit different audiences. Perhaps the brand’s existing customers tune out their ads. Or, you might find surprise success with an audience you didn’t expect; now you know that’s a target for growing your reach.

Coming equipped with suggestions and recommendations puts your best foot forward and ready to have frank, but constructive conversations about how the last campaign provides the keys to optimizing the next.

Find Silver Linings

Not every ad or campaign meets every performance expectation. But that’s an opportunity for improvement, not just shrugging shoulders. 

Before you can discuss optimizations you might need to reframe a campaign’s results. This is when it’s important to look beyond the lop line results and examine the details to find hidden wins. 

You might isolate results based upon consumer behavior and preferences to see if listeners who use a competitor’s products responded differently than the brand’s loyalists. If one placement or show stood out, dig deeper into its results to analyze why. Or, when there’s not lift in the most important KPI, see what metrics did jump – what can you learn from this?

Surprise and Delight with Unexpected Insights

When I led brand lift for a media publisher, our experienced sales team nearly always wanted to include research wherever possible, and they were often disappointed when clients didn’t request it, or even want it. 

Yet, at campaign close we’d often hear buyers and brand stakeholders express in hindsight their regret that they didn’t opt for brand metrics. Sometimes this absence of data became a speed bump on the road to renewal. So, we started to see the value in booking studies even when not asked for. 

This gives the sales team a measure of insurance when it comes time to present that campaign wrap, along with the opportunity to surprise and delight the advertiser with the added value of insight and confirmation. 

The time to think about renewal is before the first campaign even starts. Let us help you be prepared with the performance insights and story to clear the path. We’d love to hear from you.