Excess share of voice (eSOV) is an important concept in marketing and media investment planning. The “excess” represents the degree to which your brand’s share of voice exceeds its share of market. Numerous studies have examined this relationship and consistently found that an excess share of voice over share of market is likely to result … Read More
Marketing Training
Adstock and Diminishing Returns: non-linear advertising effects
Adstock is an important concept in marketing effectiveness. It was first quantified by Simon Broadbent in the 1970s. Its value lies in helping make marketing and media mix models more accurate by recognising that advertising and media investments have non-linear “carryover” response effects. These non-linear effects are normally grouped into two areas: the delayed effect … Read More
Coronavirus: why measurement is the key to ending the lockdown
Bill Gates once said “I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.” On April 7th, Mark Woolhouse Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh said ‘As things stand we could be out by a factor or 10 or even 100‘ [1]. Testing only … Read More
Unilever points the way by maintaining adspend in Coronavirus crisis
What is full funnel attribution in marketing?
Imagine this situation. You work in a large organisation as a digital marketing manager. You observe a sharp increase in GA direct, organic and brand generic web traffic. You want to explain the uptick but there’s nothing in your digital data that can explain it. However, you do know that your brand launched a TV/AV … Read More
What is the craft of media planning?
Over the last year people have been increasingly talking about the “craft” of media planning. Back in February 2019, Gideon Spanier the media editor of Campaign wrote, “the craft of media planing needs to make a comeback” and he further opined that “media planning has declined in importance in recent years – with serious consequences”. … Read More
Brands must grow before they can be harvested
Over the last decade, as an industry, we have become brilliant at harvesting the lower funnel. Every prospect who is showing “signals” of making a purchase can be digitally tracked and retargeted from the first flicker of interest to the point of purchase. This tracking has evolved to increase any one brand’s chances of closing … Read More
What is RFV analysis?
RFV stands for Recency, Frequency, Value. It’s a technique database analysts use to segment their customer data by plotting customers into a three dimensional space using three metrics: Recency – a measure of how recently a customer last purchased. Frequency – how often they purchase within a given time period. Value – the amount they … Read More
Best practice in marketing and media attribution to increase ROMI
Introduction This paper defines the marketing attribution problem and looks at the ways marketers can generate an accurate view of their return on marketing and media investment. There are lots of views, approaches and tools available to assist marketers with marketing and media attribution but unfortunately, most are limited in one way or another and … Read More
How to calculate cost per thousand (CPM) in paid media
Cost per thousand is a key metric in paid media planning. It’s important because it tells you the comparative cost of reaching the same volume of target audience in different media channels. Did you know that the cost of reaching 1,000 people in TV is about £5 and the cost of reaching 1,000 people by … Read More
How to calculate TV impacts from your media budget
Calculating TV impacts from your media budget is relatively easy. The formula is: Budget / CPT x 1,000 So, if your budget is £250,000 and your CPT is £5 then you are buying 50,000 thousands of impacts or 50,000,000 impacts. In TV media planning these calculations are usually based on a 30 second ad. But … Read More
What is a TV Audience Impact?
TV audience impacts are a measure of audience volume in media planning. In traditional media they are called impacts, in digital media they tend to be called impressions. What is the definition of a TV audience impact? An impacts is: One person Seeing one ad At one time Example: If 5 million people watch an … Read More
Binet and Field – Is it really 60/40
Whilst the endeavours of Les Binet and Peter Field have helped the industry make huge strides in how it looks at advertising effectiveness, and particularly the importance of long-term brand building, the industry’s unquestioning acceptance of their suggested 60/40 “brand” / “activation” marketing budget split makes me nervous. Although I don’t have the raw data … Read More
30 low cost ways to increase web site traffic
Not everyone has a large advertising budget so here are 30 free or low cost ways to increase your web site traffic: Make sure your site is fully indexed on Google and has no broken links Set up a Google Analytics account so you can see what’s working best If your site is built on … Read More
How to calculate return on marketing investment (ROMI)
The basic formula for calculating return on marketing investment (ROMI) is: [[sales-costs]/marketing costs] Where: Sales is the revenue generated from marketing activity recorded as sales to customers Costs are the costs of generating those sales (cost of goods sold or COGS) and the costs of marketing. Some notes: How carefully you define sales and costs … Read More
How to write a better Marketing Plan
Your marketing plan is an important document, it will help convince others that your business is viable, it will show that you have a plan to grow your business and it will give you a framework in which to build your business. Writing a better marketing plan Most people can write a basic marketing plan. … Read More
A simple definition of marketing
A quick thought for those who want a simple definition of marketing. There are a number of definitions of marketing. Here are a few of the better ones: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. … Read More
What is the sales funnel and is it alive or dead?
The sales funnel is one of the most powerful conceptual tools in marketing. It gives marketers the ability to contextualise how consumers move from being unaware prospects to converted brand advocates. It was originally conceived by Elias St. Elmo Lewis an American ad agency owner who was operating out of Philadelphia in the early 1900s – … Read More
Understanding brand awareness, consideration and preference
Brand awareness is vitally important in the marketing process. As consumers need to be aware of a product and brand to purchase it, then the more consumers who are aware, the more purchases take place. This hierarchical approach, begins with awareness and moves through consideration and preference to purchase. This hierarchical path is sometimes called … Read More
Direct Mail Response Rates
What response rates can you expect from Direct Mail? Warm Direct Mail – mailings to your active customer file: In our experience, warm direct mail, i.e. DM sent to your customer file should deliver a response rate of between 1% and 5%. The average figure is around 3.5%. Cold Direct Mail – DM send to prospects … Read More
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