by Tribal DDB

• Evaluating digital campaigns
• Evaluating digital creative
• Evaluating the media plan

Evaluating digital campaigns

Judging the effectiveness of a digital campaign can require advanced multi-tasking skills. You must weigh up the competing demands of the messaging, brand, budget, media mix, KPIs and audience attention span. To make it easier to guide we’ll start by splitting the evaluation process into the two most likely deliverables you will be presented with; namely the creative concepts and media plan.

Evaluating digital creative

There are a number of key questions which you should apply to the creative concept

Does your campaign deliver the key brand message?

• Is there a strong idea?
• What does the idea say about the product?
• Simply, does the creative solution answer the brief proposition in a persuasive, memorable way?

This is the core function of any advertising; to deliver chosen sales messages that are powerful enough to change brand perception or cause a particular reaction. However, when looking at online advertising (mainly because of the ease of measurement) this often becomes simplified into ‘will it make people click’. In fact, the key consumer message can actually be a much harder thing to evaluate than those found spelled out in traditional advertising strap lines. The online environment allows for interaction, meaning that the idea, though less easily defined, can be far more powerful because brand messages can be demonstrated and audiences are left with much deeper comprehension.

Will it have cut-through?

Ads need to get noticed. The bottom line is that you are competing for attention. Not just with other
ads, but with every other activity the audience could be doing online. This is not to be confused with intrusiveness (as in life, shouting is probably the least effective way to get people to listen). It is about intellectual cut-through using innovation and charm to make the audience pause, so they pay attention to your message.

Regardless of the delivery format, will your ad stand out in its environment? Judging this can be the hardest part, as digital offers countless ways of engagement, many more than traditional TV or press work.

Methods of engagement include:

• Personalisation
• Visual design
• Intrigue
• Humour
• Gaming
• Puzzles
• Entertainment
• Interactive graphics
• Enhanced functionality

What will the ad look like?

Almost anything can be created online given time and money. Programmers and designers can create almost any type of digital experience; but there’s a world of difference in quality between the good and the bad.

How will the suggested idea be realised within your budget? Look at some equivalent ads and ask your agency how much they cost. Yours will almost certainly fall into that ballpark in terms of build quality.

Digital production is often about compromise. Budget has to be divided between production costs and media spend on filesize. Filesize has to be divided between image quality and animation - try to get a firm idea of what you are looking at.

Will the target audience respond to the tone?

Digital is the most targeted medium and it is essential to remember the ad is almost definitely not aimed at you (certainly not anyone in your frame of mind anyway!) Try to evaluate from their point of view and in their environment and online situation. A key realisation to doing this is that brands and people, while essentially the same, behave differently online. Online is a far more conversational medium and brand advertising may have to assume an appropriate tone of voice to fit in and not appear to be intruding. Many of the most successful brands have clearly changed their entire brand purely to allow themselves to be credible in the digital space. Does your ad reflect this? Are you saying something your audience will appreciate?

Where does the user go next?

The creative should fit within a planned brand journey. If there is a particular action you want a user to perform, does the ad have a strong call to action to trigger it? Do you even want users to click through immediately? If the user is not currently in the market for a product, you may merely want to raise awareness or deliver a message for when they are. If they are further down the line, you may want to display appropriate messages and information that will convert them to purchase.

Finally, if the viewer clicks through to a website, will the creative or visual style clash? Does the creative prepare them for the next step?

Is the creative single-minded?

Too often creative ideas are simply lost by how complicated they are. Concentrate on one element and do it well.

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Evaluating the media plan

The quality of an agency response to a brief is intrinsically linked to the quality of the client brief and the objectives. However, the brief does not need to be the end of the client’s involvement. Continuing the dialogue as a media plan is developed can be very productive. Most important of all, is that the client is single minded in their objectives and that these campaign objectives become the yardstick for the assessment of the media plan and indeed the whole communication strategy.

The agency’s response should answer the brief by providing the following:

1. Communication strategy

This is where the agency should really be demonstrating an understanding of the brief (the core business issue), the audience and how the audience uses the medium. If the agency has this insight they will be able to identify a unique way by which to achieve the objectives. This insight should be carried throughout the media planning and application of the creative route.

2. Communication Plan

This provides the detail of how the agency intends to use the budget. The plan should include:

a. sites selected
b. profile (demographic, behavioural and attitudinal information)
c. placement e.g. news channel
d. format e.g. banner
e. execution (creative)
f. specifications (for creative agency)
g. buy metric e.g. CPM, CPC, tenancy etc
h. rates (if disclosed)
i. quantify (impressions)
j. total cost

3. Targets/expected results

Just as it is imperative for the objectives to be clearly defined, it is important to agree what the campaign KPI’s are and to project expected results. There are a multitude of variations these could be from driving a certain number of people to a website, to encouraging engagement, to changing a perception or to simply drive sales.

Remain focused on the KPI that measures your core objective and do not be distracted by irrelevant measures. Demonstrate to your agency why you feel a particular target should be achieved and discuss the target setting with them. Targets that cannot feasibly be achieved are no use to anyone.

Finally, consider what knowledge you wish to gain from the campaign. A campaign that fails can still provide invaluable insight for future campaigns. Always ensure that you are testing, logging your findings and applying your knowledge.



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