ARMADA – Effective Campaign Analysis
BRTV (Brand Response TV) advertising is proving very popular with advertisers needing accurate sales data.
Traditional TV advertising is making way for BRTV, the offspring that has matured rapidly to take a grown-up share of the UK broadcast TV ad market.
The key benefit driving BRTV’s popularity is its accountability, providing advertisers with detailed customer data that can be analysed to accurately measure the success of a TV campaign.
The main performance indicator for any BRTV campaign is its overall cost-efficiency and return on investment. Having the data-mining tools in place to delve deep into the increasing amount of customer and viewing data is therefore essential to long-term success.
So what are the key steps to analysing BRTV effectively?
1) Estimate scheduled website visits or call volumes
Always obtain scheduled TV spot times before a campaign airs whether on Terrestrial or Digital channels. Ensure the right TV ad copy is running, along with correct URL + telephone number (if needed), and that spots are broadcast as planned in the right programmes, correct time of day and selected TV channels throughout each TV campaign. This information, along with estimated website visits + call volumes, is vital to the advertiser for pre-campaign planning.
2) Obtain detailed response data
Know what response data is going to be available once the BRTV campaign is running and how often it will be supplied. Having an infrequent supply of data leaves little time to revise media plans while a campaign is on air. Be sure to receive accurate data to match this back to spot times at a later stage.
Collecting details of when potential customers responded is more useful than simply noting gross volumes. While a BRTV campaign’s main objective is the ‘call to action’ to generate as many cost-effective leads/sales as possible, the quality of respondents is also important. This feedback is vital creative information, helping marketers understand the adverts appeal and whether it contains a clear message. It can also influence future media plans, for example a kid’s channel may be generating a large hoax response and may need to be removed from future plans.
3) Attribute responses to spots
Determine how quantifiable the data is. If TV channels have run separate telephone numbers the response data can be assigned with great accuracy. If the aim is to drive traffic to a website then we always recommend putting a pixel on the website to log the response at the times of day when the BRTV ad goes out. This spot-matching methodology is needed to attribute each response to an individual TV spot.
The most efficient is a purpose-built software system programmed to do this automatically like the one ARM Direct uses for every BRTV campaign.
4) Drill down in to the results
Analyse the response data with BARB viewing figures to determine response rates and costs. The BRTV campaign’s overall response rate and cost-per-response provides a first indication of success. However, successful or not, it is essential to drill down further into the data to establish the accountability of all the TV airtime and plan how future BRTV campaigns can be improved.
Each TV channel’s performance can be judged after responses are spot-matched, but it is also important to analyse other variables, such as days of the week, dayparts (such as peak time), position in breaks and individual TV programmes or programme genres.
Even a cost-efficient and successful TV channel may have poorly performing days or dayparts, which, if removed from future plans, could lead to a lower cost-per-response. Conversely, a TV channel that has not been effective may have certain times which were cost-efficient and the airtime could be restricted to these times in future. All these affect the overall BRTV campaign results.
This is why BRTV campaigns should be constantly tested, analysed and refined.
5) Ensure transparent costs
An ongoing (and campaign-end) reconciliation of delivered viewing figures versus budgets will give a transparent picture of final TV airtime costs. Reconciled airtime figures will show an over or under-delivery for each TV station, which will help plan spend levels for future BRTV campaigns.
6) Use return on investment to judge campaign success
When planning subsequent BRTV campaigns, use recent response rates to judge each channel’s expected performance. However, it is also important to balance the plan with cost-efficient channels and high volume generators. Response rates are guides, but cost-per-response and ROI are the key performance indicators.
7) Variable airtime costs may reduce future efficiencies
When analysing campaign results and planning future budgets, the changeable TV landscape should be considered. A TV channel may not perform successfully month on month due to external factors, such as new competing satellite channels launching, programming changes and particularly price changes.
The majority of TV airtime is purchased through CpTs (cost-per-thousand viewers). Each TV station’s price can fluctuate by month. Therefore, TV airtime purchased in one campaign may be more expensive by the next. This can have an impact on future results and must be taken into consideration when planning future BRTV activity based upon previous results.
ATLAS INTERNATIONAL – a DRTV Success Story
Atlas International, a highly successful international property developer, appointed ARM Direct to re-make their DRTV ads and also to re-plan their TV airtime buying & social media strategy.
This included planning for new DRTV campaigns in the UK, Spain, Ireland, Sweden and Norway. An essential requirement of these BRTV campaigns was to generate thousands of new leads from potential property buyers for their substantial property portfolio in Spain, Cyprus and the Greek Islands.
Accountability and the ability to track and analyse every TV channel’s performance on a daily basis was also top of their ‘must have’ list.
Atlas International decided to use ARMADA – ARM Direct’s bespoke online software system – to help select the best performing TV channels and times of day to advertise. By using ARMADA to analyse responses alongside viewing figures, Atlas International was able to view spot-matched results and cost-per-response figures by variables such as dayparts and programme genres. In this way, this ambitious overseas property company was able to constantly refine its DRTV media plans to produce more cost-efficient results.
At around this time ARM Direct also managed to secure a sponsorship deal for Atlas International on repeats of ‘A Place in the Sun’ TV programme – by using ARMADA the company was able to track responses back to this marketing activity. As a consequence Atlas International benefited from increased brand awareness by being associated with this ever popular TV programme.
Crucially, ARMADA has been able to provide Atlas International with fast, accountable and actionable DRTV results, enabling ARM Direct to substantially improve media planning & buying efficiency and crucially lower their DRTV cost-per-response year on year.