Did you know nearly 80% of businesses utilize market research to learn more about their performance, customers, competition, and trends?
Those businesses can then use this valuable insight to help guide their overall business strategy and drive positive changes.
But did you know research can also be applied to better position your advertising plan? Read on as we unpack how market research can uncover opportunities to enhance your next rock-solid advertising strategy.
Advertising testing with market research involves using data-driven insights to fuel creative copy, imagery, word association, and more.
It is a process of asking questions about a company’s advertising messages in order to test out the effectiveness of a campaign or message.
The questions included in ad testing may cover a variety of topics such as:
Asking these questions through advertising concept testing allows brands and marketing teams to better understand how their campaigns will be perceived by their target market before going out into the public.
Market research plays a significant role in helping companies improve the effectiveness and strength of their marketing and advertising strategy.
It uses many methods to gather, interpret, and analyze data into concrete insights that inform the strategy of a given market and its unique goals and challenges.
This can include a detailed understanding of:
Whether it be to craft a unique message catered to a specific audience, deliver ads on platforms where targets are engaging, or test a series of product selling points, market research can help advance your strategy and even reduce risk in business decision-making.
Businesses spend a huge amount of money on advertising – and that number is only growing.
Why so much? Because advertising, whether it be on social media or Google, works. It helps businesses increase awareness and in turn revenue.
However, in order for advertising to be effective, it needs to both cut through the noise to reach and resonate with target buyers.
To accomplish this, pre and post-advertising testing are essential to assure marketing dollars are being well spent.
For a quick overview of more benefits of advertising testing with market research, watch our video below.
The idea of A/B testing has existed for a while. Although, in many cases, it is used after time and money are already spent on designing the ads.
For instance, let’s say a car manufacturer runs advertising image testing on Facebook. They spend $500 on two ad sets and determine that…
The car manufacturing brand then determines it should invest its remaining marketing budget in Ad A.
But, what if neither Ad A nor Ad B truly resonates with target buyers?
What if there are better colors, fonts, words, and graphics that should have been used?
Ad testing with market research reviews each of these components and more. It can also determine if Facebook is even a good advertising channel for the car manufacturer.
Recommended Reading: Conducting A/B Testing? Use an Online Survey for Better Insights
Creating data-driven marketing campaigns is the most under-utilized asset according to 87% of marketers.
And for good reason.
Conducting advertising testing with market research helps businesses optimize their campaigns and messaging strategies, which can lead to increased sales and higher customer engagement.
It pinpoints areas of value and potential problems with ad copy or design before launching it.
This allows businesses to eliminate any potential errors in their campaigns before they start, saving them time and money down the line.
Every customer is different. From preferences to buying behaviors to demographics.
Therefore, it’s hard for one single ad to relate to everyone.
Today, personalization is extremely important in marketing and advertising.
In fact, 90% of leading marketers say personalization significantly contributes to business profitability.
Luckily, an additional benefit of advertising testing is that it can group your customers into market segments based on common characteristics and traits.
Doing so will help to create more personalized ads that highlight what is most important or appealing.
For instance, keeping with the car manufacturing brand example above, let’s say they are interested in advertising copy testing.
Survey responses show that…
These insights can help design specific ads for these groups that emphasize price vs. safety and target them to the right audience online.
Advertising testing with market research can also help businesses identify new opportunities for growth.
By testing different messages and strategies, businesses can uncover new ways to reach their target audience and increase their customer base.
Additionally, testing can help businesses identify new trends in their industry, allowing them to stay ahead of the competition.
From our experience as an advertising market research company, market segmentation, ad concept testing and focus groups are all market research strategies that can create better ad campaigns. Each method has a different approach, yet still delivers important data around what will resonate with the public.
Keep reading to learn more about these methods.
Market segmentation takes large quantities of target and non-target customers and groups them into subsets based on unique characteristics like common interests, needs, priorities, and life stages.
Strategies are then built based on those attributes as segmentation assumes that individuals in a shared segment will also share similar preferences and purchase behaviors. Utilizing market segmentation this way recognizes that not all customers are alike and can revolutionize how we understand and engage with customers.
A common mistake businesses make when crafting an advertising strategy is creating just one single strategy. While this is a serious time saver, it will likely miss the mark and could cost you more time and budget in the long run.
Imagine being a loyal customer of a brand you’ve been purchasing for years.
You’ve followed them on social media and have completed a number of positive reviews for a few of their products. Now, consider the latest social media advertisement you received for that brand that spoke to you as a new customer: “SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR 20% OFF YOUR FIRST PURCHASE!”
A message like that is likely a false promise (you’re a regular returning customer, after all!).
You may go as far to submit your email to determine what incentive awaits, and would probably be left with a little confusion. Most importantly it might impact your likelihood to purchase again, or at the very least whether you’d recommend it to a friend.
Therefore, taking the time to group your customers into segments and personalize your messaging to the exact target, and where they are in their buying journey will help your marketing efforts and retain those loyal customers.
Ad concept testing puts to work the perceptions and reactions of a targeted sample to potential ideas and elements of marketing and advertising strategies.
Elements often tested during ad concept testing surveys can include messaging, tones, themes, and other visuals.
Testing a number of choices to identify what resonates best will help businesses optimize their team’s creativity and make data-driven decisions. Through this process, candid feedback Is collected, and insights are crafted to best understand how concepts resonate with that audience.
It’s key to implement this early on, during the development stage of a campaign to allow advertising and marketing teams to incorporate that valuable feedback into their decision-making before investing precious resources like time and budget into the effort.
Conducting this process early on also reduces potential risk of launching an ineffective campaign that may or may not resonate with the intended customer.
Here are more benefits of ad concept testing.
A pillar market research tactic, focus groups are successful in guiding businesses to a better strategy.
They provide businesses the unique opportunity to observe a group discuss their product. This can be especially useful in understanding perceptions, thoughts, and reactions from a target audience that can be used to inform an advertising strategy.
There are several ways focus groups can be leveraged in strengthening advertising strategy:
Understanding motivations: Observing a focus group discussion allows researchers to dive deeper into target customers’ beliefs and perceptions about a product or offering. Understanding their unique motivators to purchase, or barriers, can help uncover insight into their buyer behavior and how best to improve it.
Candid feedback in real-time: Focus groups stand apart from quantitative research methods like online surveys in that they allow researchers to observe customer reactions in real-time. This valuable position can sometimes result in the collection of unexpected insights as well as valuable, transparent group dialog.
Emerging trends, preferences, and dislikes: Studying a group discussion around potential advertising strategies allows the opportunity to learn about their likes, dislikes, validations, and concerns in a group setting. Having this information ahead of developing a strategy ensures that measures are in place to fit in a prospective customer’s consideration set and stay up to date with the popular trends.
After collecting valuable customer and non-customer insights comes time to apply those learnings to an advertising strategy. Luckily, there are a number of ways to do this and to ensure ongoing learning.
Today, customers are more tech-savvy than ever and can identify a paid advertisement as soon as they see them.
As a result, the content we choose to share with our target audience has heightened importance.
Creating targeted content can be tricky, but doing so after conducting market research can help ensure it’s seamlessly integrated into your brand’s voice.
Not only can content be done internally (a considerable cost saver), but its return is a serious win. In fact, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads!
By applying market research findings to your content strategy you can ensure that your content is not only reaching your target audience, but that you’re also sharing the information you now know they want to hear.
It’s important to regularly develop different types of content to speak to different stages your target customer may be in during their purchase journey because not all customers will be in the same stage.
Educational material may resonate best during the early awareness stage, while comparison charts and graphics may make sense to a customer who’s already interested and is evaluating their options.
The information you share is very important, but so is how you say it. Choosing the right tone and style is a great opportunity to marry up to your existing brand voice and to speak to a customer the way they would expect to.
While sharing educational material you want to remain helpful, but not stuffy. Acting as a resource to your target customer may resonate better and ensure that you are a subject matter expert they reference in the future.
Research can also help uncover insights around cultural trends and norms that can be used to refine tone and avoid potential misinterpretation.
Content is an opportunity to answer questions a target audience often asks, stand out among the competition you know is also being considered, and show your value.
Market research can provide the foundational framework from which a media plan can be built.
Understanding your target (and nontarget) audience is key when developing a media channel strategy.
By putting insight to work, informed decisions can be made regarding targeting, channel use and budget allocation. However, building a strategic media plan can work to enhance that investment further.
When information like demographics, behavior, and preference data are available, precious budgets can be carefully allocated to channels where we know our target audience is.
Beyond that, factors that are also covered in market research exercises like seasonality and timing, competition and trends, and newly identified market opportunities can all be incorporated in crafting a budget allocation that will work towards internal objectives and KPIs.
Once the research has been completed, the advertising strategy has been built, media plans crafted, and budgets approved, the opportunity to learn hasn’t ended, it’s just advanced.
When an advertising campaign is live (and done so through market research), the potential risk factors have already been vetted, allowing resources to closely monitor its progress. In monitoring, optimizations can be made throughout a campaign flight, and adjustments can be made based on the feedback received from the target audience, environment, and competition.
While live, there’s also a valuable opportunity to conduct testing against various factors to determine which resonates best.
Perhaps the team narrowed the copy down to two options. This is a great opportunity to test those factors. Or, maybe personalization was a factor favored during a focus group.
Once a campaign is live, the doors open to a number of valuable opportunities to learn, adjust and pivot an advertising strategy.
Coca-Cola faced declining sales in the early 2010s and needed a fresh advertising approach to resonate with younger consumers.
Through extensive market research, including surveys, focus groups, social media listening, and behavioral data analysis, they discovered that personalization and social media engagement were key preferences among millennials and Gen Z.
This insight led to the launch of the “Share a Coke” campaign, where Coca-Cola replaced its logo on bottles with popular names, encouraging consumers to share photos of their personalized bottles on social media.
The campaign was a resounding success, resulting in significant sales increases and massive social media engagement, with millions of photos shared online.
Coca-Cola’s innovative use of market research to understand and connect with its audience highlights the power of personalization and online engagement in modern advertising, ultimately strengthening its brand image as fun, youthful, and social.
A brand reached out to us at Drive Research, seeking to improve its advertising sales strategy and uncover new revenue opportunities through advertising research. The challenge was: how could the team better understand advertiser needs, streamline its sales approach, and stand out from competitors in a crowded market?
The brand, in collaboration with our team, conducted an online survey targeting current and advertising efforts, alongside a competitive analysis of five key industry players. The study explored advertiser motivations, preferences for ad types, spending habits, and perceptions of competitor offerings. This combination of survey feedback and competitive benchmarking resulted a full-scope view of the market landscape.
The results provided the client with evidence-based recommendations to refine their sales processes, identify high-value advertising opportunities, and resolve overlapping sales functions. Backed by both quantitative survey data and qualitative competitive insights, the organization walked away with an action-driven roadmap to increase advertising revenue and strengthen its market position.
It’s essential to understand the best practices when it comes to advertising testing with market research.
Consider working with a third-party market research company to feel confident all best practices and quality control measures are handled.
To ensure the study yields valuable insights, follow these tips.
1. Start off with a clear goal in mind
When implementing an advertising test, make sure to think strategically about what your goals with the test should be, as this will help to shape the structure of the research.
Plus, Knowing your objectives beforehand makes it easier to measure success.
2. Clarify any metrics that can be used to assess the success
Is the goal of your ad to influence sales? Or, is the objective to differentiate your brand from competitors?
The metrics you determine will decide what questions to include in your advertisement concept testing.
Here are the top ad metrics to consider:
3. Include open-ends in your survey
If you are using online surveys as a technique for testing advertising effectiveness, be sure to include 2 to 3 open-ended questions.
Doing so allows you to gain new perspectives and insights that could enhance your advertising strategies.
4. Choose your audience wisely
Make sure you select survey respondents who align with your target buyer and campaign goals.
After all, this is the audience you most want to reach and attract.
Online survey companies like Drive Research will use this criteria (age, gender, seniority, job function, etc.) when collecting survey sample.
5. Timing isn’t everything, but it is important
It is also important to consider the timing of the test. Depending on the type of ad, the timing of the test can have a significant impact on the results.
For example, if the ad is for a seasonal product, it may be best to conduct the test during the season when the product is most popular.
6. Keep track of your changes
Lastly, it’s important to analyze the data you have collected and use it to make informed decisions. Make sure to review the results of your testing and adjust your strategies accordingly.
What’s the use of conducting advertising testing with market research if the results are not used?
Additionally, keep track of the changes you make and the results they produce, so that you can continue to refine your advertising testing and maximize its effectiveness.
Boasting years of combined market research experience, our team is ready to partner with yours to deliver the insights around advertising you need. We’ll work with your specific business needs to ensure the data you receive is relevant to your specific target audience.
To learn more about our market research services, get in touch with us today.
