TRACK THE RETURN ON YOUR ADVERTISING DOLLARS

The cost-benefit of Internet advertising can now be fairly readily quantified, and tools are steadily improving. Offline paid media advertising matured between the 1920s and 1960s, but research was not applied to quantify advertising's results until the 1980s.

Still, the average business has difficulty seeing the results of its advertising dollars. The goal and expectation should be a system that automatically tracks every dollar spent and every offer made to every current and prospective customer. Until you impliment a real-time system such as those we build, you need to manage your traditional advertising expenditures and ROI manually.

In credit-tight economies, managers' need to conserve cash flow forces companies to focus, first on cutting expenditures which cannot be proven to impact the bottom line. But without sales, you have no business. Your company's challenge is to understand which of your advertising dollars are actually impacting your sales - short and long term.

LET RESEARCH SUPPORT AND VALUE YOUR ADVERTISING

At every step in the ad campaign development and implementation process, there is an appropriate use of research to support it or quantify its impact and return on investment (ROI).

The Advertising Research Process chart on this page outlines the type and role of research at each step in the process:

• Previous customer and market research can combine with targeted qualitative research (focus groups) to help define the ad campaign
• A baseline quantitative study can define market "top of mind" (first brand name, product name, or advertising campaign that comes to mind) for brands, products or competitor awareness.
• Media research will target the placement mix and schedule.
• Focus groups are used for concept and ad testing to refine the campaign.

CONTACT US to help make your research the key to your company's future.