Advertising
testing is one of the staples of market research as it directly appeals to the
measurement and improvements of marketing effectiveness. Ad testing itself
comes in a variety of types depending on the specific platform where the advert
is in development and implementation.
The purpose of
an advert is to create sales, but a good advertising does more than just
raising sales value, it awares consumers about the brand and imparts meaning to
that brand.
Advertising testing therefore mostly starts with the creative end of the scale looking at
concept testing using qualitative research. Various concepts are drawn up and
respondents, often in focus groups, but also in direct sensory-emotional
depths, describe what they take out of the advert, what they like or don't like
about it and how they think it would affect their behavior. Naturally it's very
difficult for someone to exactly say how they would respond to advertising or
which advert they would find most appealing, so researchers take care to
introduce the advertising carefully. For instance, hiding the test ad among
others, changing the order in which the adverts are shown, giving respondents
dials to play with to show interest, or play games like a post-test after the
respondents think the testing has finished.
At an initial
level, these concept tests can screen out poor adverts those are difficult to
understand, but they are often tested before they are fully finished and if can
be difficult for respondents to fully imagine the final version. An extension
of this type of qualitative testing is qualitative concept development. That is
where the research is used iteratively with the creative team to define and
refine the ideas. It might start very open and then the design team works up
concepts to test, placing them in front of respondents to see how individuals
respond neurologically or psychologically to the concepts, then slowing
refining and picking winners. This type of iterative development is rare, but
is being used more often. With online research it can also be processed into
fast-testing to ensure the equal is reflected by small sample quant tests.
Pre-testing
The formal
testing of advertising which is practically finished is known as pre-testing.
This is typically a more quantitative process to evaluate the potential reach
and success it can generate. For broadcast advertising, much of the cost is in
buying media space so in an advanced form of pre-testing the advertising is
tested in a smaller region or area prior to rolling out finally. In this way,
the advertising would only be executed if it meets certain goals.
Pre- Post- Test and Control testing
The main testing
of advertising is done through a traditional statistical test. It is possible
that the collection of advertising to be quite poor but for the advertising
itself to have an effect on brand recognition and consideration and other
market metrics, almost at a subconscious level, and secondly there is usually
an amount of false recognition (around 3-4% in the UK, and up to 5-6% in the
US). So to formally measure effectiveness it's not correct to blindly rely on
post-advertising recollection as reported by respondents. Instead measurement
is done by a pre- and post- measurement using matched samples. The pre-
measurement takes place before the advertising goes live and sets a benchmark.
It's normally constructed carefully to ensure that a range of different awareness
and consideration measures are captured firstly without the respondent knowing
which company is sponsoring the research, then with prompting to capture
additional recollection. The post- measurement then re-measures these details
among a sample matched to the pre- sample (matched samples) to ensure
statistical replicability. Changes are then made to be constructed directly to
the advertising campaign and any other news or information that the advertising
generates.
In practice this
still might not sufficient to measure the real effect. Changes to the market,
or arecent economic or political event or even simple seasonality can cause the
post- measurement to change even without any advertising effect. So to control
for this a full pre- post- test and control trial can be run. In this design
the pre- and post- measures are divided into two areas (typically geographic,
such as different locations) - one larger area, the test area where people get
to see or hear the advertising and a smaller area - the control - where the
advertising is not shown. From this it becomes possible to isolate out the
advertising effectiveness from other factors by looking at how measurements
changed in the control area compared to how they changed in the test area.
To make this
even more effective you can look at test and control areas for different platforms
- eg some with radio, some with radio plus poster and so on, so you can start
to try to isolate out media effects (generally media has a cumulative effect -
that is combined has a bigger effect than either one thing or another
separately). Even where there is no formal demarcation it can be possible to
infer effectiveness by looking at groups that listen to the radio compared to
those who didn't.
Ad Testing allows you to:
- Effectively target key market segments with content that results into resonance.
- Get iterative feedback to ensure core messaging sticks, and to share those insights with ad creators and/or stakeholders.
- Achieve data-driven confidence when promoting a campaign
- Make an informed go or no-go decision when deploying an ad
- Evaluate the performance of an ad agency
- Get the highest possible ROI out of your ad spend
- Predict advertising influence on purchase intent
The following are eight commonly performed ad tests:
RECALL
Companies need
to be worth memorizing if customers are going to consider their products or
services. In a recall test, participants see an ad and then wait a specified
amount of time before being asked whether they are able to recall a particular
ad or product.
PERSUASION
A test for
persuasion measures the effectiveness of an ad in changing attitudes and
intentions. This test assesses brand attitudes before and after ad exposure.
Participants answer a series of questions before seeing the proposed
advertisement. Then they take a second test to assess how the advertisement
changed their attitudes and intentions.
RESPONSE
All ads are
designed to drive an action or a conversion. This is especially true in the
cases of online businesses that rely on click-through and conversion to generate
revenue. In a response test, participants receive an ad with a unique
identifier (URL string, promo code, phone number, etc.) to track how well the
advertisement performs in converting interest to action.
SERVICE ATTRIBUTES
This type of ad
test determines which attributes and features the ad is successfully
communicating. For instance, a services attribute test might ask whether the ad
communicates that a certain computer is reliable or whether it tells more about
the highlighted features.
COMMUNICATING BENEFITS
Effective ads
communicate the right product or feature benefits to the target market.
Benefits might include aspects like comfort, quality, or luxury.
PERSONAL VALUES
Personal values
are a large factor in driving consumer purchase decisions. If a customer is
purchasing a car, they may value customer service, vehicle reliability, or the
affordability of dealership services. When testing ads it’s important to
determine how well an advertisement communicates the personal values of the
target market.
HIGHER ORDER VALUES
Advertisements
often communicate higher order values, such as accomplishment, piece of mind,
or personal satisfaction that resonates much into audience psychology. These
higher order values can have great influence on purchase decisions, brand
awareness, and market positioning.
AD EFFECTIVENESS
This type of ad
testing measures how effective an ad is, based on behavioral and attitudinal
goals. These goals will vary by ad and include such factors as whether the ad
is entertaining to watch, whether the ad is informative, and whether the ad
drives consumers to purchase specific a product of service.
Oniyosys provides Advertisement Quality Testing
Service for various types of Ads including Banner Ads, Text Ads, Inline Ads,
Pop-up Ads, In-text Ads, and Video Ads etc. We report bad quality ads with its
screenshots, HTML code and we take the latest fiddler session which helps clients
to remove bad quality ads quickly. We also provide testing for bad quality ads
on Chrome and Firefox browsers. Our team is equipped with experienced Digital
Experts who can rule out every error and possible faults for better conversion.
