Metrics, Metrics Everywhere: Simplifying Campaign Evaluation

Metrics, Metrics Everywhere: Simplifying Campaign EvaluationPublished: June 2011 | By Yahoo!, comScore

Digital really is the most measurable medium, and as such, it continues to produce metrics, metrics, everywhere! This constant influx of new metrics may sometimes be difficult to navigate through, specifically as it relates to how they relate to measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. We already have traditional brand metrics (brand awareness, brand favorability and purchase intent), that have a clear role in campaign evaluation. However, there are new digital-specific behavioral metrics, such as trademark searches, site visits, and page views whose roles in campaign measurement have yet to be clarified.

Methodology

Yahoo!, in partnership with comScore, looked at over 100 campaigns across 5 categories to see how changes in behavioral metrics relate to changes in brand metrics and near-term purchases. All 100 campaigns were measured using behavioral, brand, and when available, purchase metrics.

For our analysis, we looked at three of the most common behavioral metrics (trademark searches, site visits and page views), four of the most common brand metrics (brand awareness, brand favorability, likelihood to recommend, and purchase intent), and for categories where short-term purchase data was available (purchase within 1 week of exposure to the campaign), we included this data.Metrics, Metrics Everywhere: Simplifying Campaign Evaluation

The three behavioral metrics were highly correlated with each other (.80 and higher). Campaigns which drove an increase in search behavior also drove an increase in website visitation and page views. As such we were able to group behavioral metrics when analyzing their correlation to traditional metrics.

With our 3 behaviors combined, we performed multivariate regressions (R2) to understand how well changes in our behavioral metrics predicted changes in our brand and purchase metrics.
Metrics, Metrics Everywhere: Simplifying Campaign Evaluation

Key Findings

1. Depending on the category, changes in behavioral metrics can be predictive of:
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2. Behavioral metrics are predictive of lift in brand metrics within CPG: Health & Beauty and Computer & Technology categories: (Strong prediction = a R2 .40 and higher)
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3. Behavioral metrics are predictive of purchase within Retail and CPG: Food & Grocery categories, but not of brand metrics.
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4. Behavioral metrics are predictive of brand AND purchase within the Quick Service Restaurant category.
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Conclusion

Depending on the category, changes in behavioral metrics can be predictive of different traditional metrics. An understanding of these relationships, and how they vary by category, may allow behavioral metrics to be used as a proxy for brand metrics and purchases.

Metrics, Metrics Everywhere: Simplifying Campaign Evaluation

Metrics, Metrics Everywhere: Simplifying Campaign Evaluation

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