Brand Lift Definition and Methodology
What is brand lift?
Brand lift is the measurement of how your ads are shifting and shaping consumers’ perceptions and behaviors. Essentially, it summarizes the positive results that your brand has experienced since launching a digital marketing campaign by demonstrating an increase in consumer interaction with your brand.
How is brand lift measured?
Brand lift is measured with brand lift studies. These studies measure brand lift by analyzing organic search traffic and using surveys to receive direct consumer feedback regarding a brand’s harder-to-hit metrics.
Search traffic helps show how many consumers are searching for keywords related to your brand, both after exposure to an ad campaign and without exposure. Consumer feedback reflects directly on metrics that show public perception and purchase intent around a brand and its products and services.
Between quantitative data like web analytics and softer metrics like brand awareness, the brand lift is calculated.
What does a brand lift study look like?
A primary example of a brand lift measurement tool is Google Consumer Surveys. When a brand runs video campaigns on YouTube, Google Consumer Surveys can help measure brand lift by presenting viewers with quick, single-question surveys. Google Consumer Surveys can also leverage Google’s massive network to embed these brand lift surveys in various sites that ask consumers to complete the surveys before proceeding to the content they want to view. The surveys are presented to a chosen target audience and the results are aggregated for the advertiser in an easy-to-use platform.
What's the brand lift study methodology?
Run one test at a time with large samples. Divide your target audience into two similar groups, like two similarly behaving demographics or geographic areas. Expose one group to ads but not the other. Measure the results of the study for both sample groups and see the effects.
What are the brand lift metrics to measure results?
Several metrics help represent brand lift, each conveying different pieces of a puzzle that shows consumer interest and intent. They include some traditional metrics, but are not limited to:
- Brand awareness: How familiar consumers are with your brand.
- Consideration: After a consumer is familiar with your brand, they enter the stage of consideration. This is when the consumer is evaluating your brand’s products or services and considering the idea of making a purchase or taking further action with your brand.
- Ad recall: How well consumers recall your ads after exposure; heavily affected by the frequency of ad exposure, ad format, and targeting relevancy.
- Brand sentiment and favorability: General opinion or emotion shown by consumers toward your brand, as well as how likely they are to recommend your brand to others.
- Share of voice: How much media space your brand occupies compared to your competitors; illustrates brand visibility and position in public discourse.
- Top searches: The terms being searched for the most on search engines like Google.
- Rising searches: The terms being searched for at an increasing frequency over a recent period of time.
- Web traffic: How many users are visiting your brand’s website.
- Conversions: Examples strongly related to brand lift include increases in purchases or repeat customers.
