A recent study by RACONTEUR shows that TV Advertising budgets have been plummeting in the last few years. Users spend a lot more time on digital connected devices, and as a direct result - budgets have shifted to where consumers are. TV adds significant incremental lift.

TV Advertising also has some logistical complexities that digital advertising does not have: It is a regional (or national) medium, there are specific regulations, but most importantly - it is not tracked with the same deterministic approach as digital advertising.

Even with these shortcomings - TV continues being an extremely effective medium: 

• Reach - even with time spent on digital devices - TV almost did not lose any reach. Users are using digital devices like smartphones and tablets while watching TV in what was termed as “Dual Screening”, thus, keeping TV reach high.
• ROI - studies show that TV Advertising leads to an average ROI of about 60% 
• Trust - Customers perception is that “if it’s on TV - it’s real” making TV advertising increase brand loyalty and validates that the brand is trustworthy enough for consumers to spend money on - even if the product is a digital product

The last point is the reason why so many digital Advertisers are looking for ways to enter TV advertising. It validates the brand and product so that users who may be resistant to spend digitally - do so.

TV Campaign Tracking Methods

User Panels

A very old fashioned method to measure the effectiveness of TV advertising has been to hold up consumer panels. 

Product surveys in grocery stores, surveys in shopping malls (usually in return to some incentive to the consumer), or by providing a small percent of the population with a “clicker box”.

Brands have depended on panel companies to provide consumer data for more than a century. 

Some sector of Advertisers, specifically: consumer goods, rely on this data as it does voice the average consumer and as some of those brands have no way to get direct 1st party data as they do not sell direct to consumers.

TV Blackout

Blackout is done by switching off Advertising for a period of time, reviewing sales lift, and switching TV advertising back on to monitor the delta.

Blackout is probably the most common method of TV advertising attribution - and for Advertisers who use TV exclusively - this is a very good way to run measurement. 

For Advertisers who use multiple mediums and a media mix model - this method is not effective, and creates a potential opportunity cost that exceeds the gains.

Incrementality Testing

Incrementality testing provides operational insights for optimization, helping Advertisers unlock the full value of their budget.

This method can provide insights in granular levels over campaigns, demographics, vendors, geo location, contextual features. These insights can be used at an operational and tactical level.

By observing changes in sales and marketing cost data, incrementality platforms are able to create hyper parameters (a combination of parameters across a time series) that can show if a campaign is incremental or not.

Incrementality testing has been a holy grail in marketing , but only very few invested the resources required to evaluate it. 

With the current market conditions eliminating identifiable data companies are forced to make the effort of researching incrementality as the best alternative to measurement.

INCRMNTAL is an incrementality measurement platform allowing advertisers to know the value of their marketing activities across all channels. TV is a brand building medium legitimizing a product. Marketers deserve a platform to measure their TV campaigns.

If you want to learn more, visit INCRMNTAL or book a demo today!