A recent case study was performed by Dynamic Logic and Compete, the largest U.S. behavioral panel. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a new homepage takeover for a national fast food restaurant. A takeover is when the advertising agency has 100% control of the display impressions of that page. The goal of the advertising agency with regards to the takeover was to enhance perceptions of the brand with both current and new customers. They also wanted to drive customers to purchase their new menu offerings both online and offline.
So let me share the results and the impact of this campaign:
- The campaign improved brand favorability by 4%, which is astounding since brand favorability is a hard metric to even move. Customers were essentially saying they were more favorable of this restaurant chain after viewing the homepage.
But the question is what did these customers actually do?
- There was a 61% increase in brand searches with the restaurant name by customers who actually saw the homepage.
- Site visits continued to increase with more exposure. The chart shows with the lowest levels of ad awareness to the page at about 30% for those customers who did not see the ad page all the way to 66% for those customers who saw the ad 4 or more times. It would appear looking at the orange line of the chart that the optimal frequency for impressions of a customer would be 2 to 3 times.
However, there is a difference between “click-through” (orange line) and “view-through” (blue line). View-through is a broader metric than click-through which only measures site visits. The blue line represents the behavioral data where customers viewed the web page where the ad was and then subsequently clicked additional links to the main site (either immediately or within 7 days after the campaign).
So the data shows customers who saw 4 or more impressions were more likely to click further into the campaign site.
Did this lead customers to make a purchase?
- There was a substantial increase by 9% of customers actual intent to purchase.
- When we look at online orders, we see the same trend. Orders increase by 78%!
So what is the lesson here:
- Customers visit the site more based on exposure.
- The campaign is positively impacted by brand attitude. This only happens if the campaign is memorable. Just throwing a campaign together is nothing more than spam. It is neither invited nor appreciated.
So if your dilemma is your site isn’t attracting customers, then you might want to do a simple self-evaluation:
- Am I leading my customer down a “breadcrumb trail” or just hoping they buy?
- Am I giving my customer information they want or am I just regurgitating what they already know? Your customer is saying help me learn something that is of value that I don’t know.
- Do I creatively bring exposure to my brand or does my customer feel like I am just selling them something?
The truth is what your customer says and what they do are closely aligned with what you do to help them say yes.