When it comes to digital media, the landscape changes on a nearly daily basis. As advertisers, we aim to test new opportunities in the marketplace to forge the path toward innovation and success. In order to do so, we need to establish clear metrics for measuring media performance. Based on each campaign’s goals, we try to provide guidance and formulate media strategies that best achieve the desired metrics. Typically, advertisers are looking to use digital media to increase and improve one of five things:

1. Brand Awareness

In order to measure the lift that digital media drives across a target audience, we would ideally implement a third-party brand study. Utilizing a study allows us to measure how all tactics of the digital campaign are driving up the brand lift. While these studies are the most effective way to measure brand awareness, we can also look directionally at unique impressions, frequency, or video views.

2. Consumer Engagement

When evaluating how digital media is increasing consumer engagement, we are measuring how the users are interacting with the digital advertising as well as the brand. Primarily, we’re evaluating time spent, page views, and actions on the landing page. In addition to these numbers, we would also evaluate the cost per action to see how efficiently we’re driving the actions.

3. Purchase Intent

For a goal that is further down the purchase funnel, advertisers may wish to achieve an increased purchase intent. When quantifying this goal, advertisers can measure completed forms, calls from digital media, shopping cart actions, or store locator actions. Advertisers can also utilize a third-party purchase intent study for even greater insights.

4. Sales

If there’s a sale goal tied to a digital media campaign, we would measure our success based on the actual number of orders or sales online. Additionally, we’d want to ensure the media is still providing these increased sales efficiently, and we would also suggest evaluating return on investment (ROI), return on ad spend (ROAS), or cost per order (CPO).

5. Loyalty

In order to maintain a strong relationship with consumers after their purchases, and to keep an advertiser in their consideration set for recommendations and future purchases, we can evaluate loyalty. The metrics associated with loyalty can be quantified with fan growth or community interactions. No matter what we are looking to measure across digital media campaigns, it is important to plan media around these specific goals. With clear guidance on what we are measuring, we can truly evaluate the impact of digital media across all tactics of a comprehensive advertising campaign and make optimizations as we go for even greater success.