My new column is live in The Drum:
LinkedIn’s recently unveiled ‘Reactions’ will likely lead to countless marketers tracking how many ‘likes,’ ‘celebrates,’ ‘loves,’ ‘insightfuls’ and ‘curiouses’ their posts receive – as if those designations mean anything as marketing metrics.
During a talk at a CMO Network event in England last month on whether most of the internet is fake, I suggested that marketers do the following experiment.
Target a city with display ads. Survey advertising metrics such as top of mind awareness, brand recall and purchase intent among people there in the real world after the campaign. Do the same with TV, print, radio, outdoor, social media and cinema. Use a control group as well as the same creative over the same time in the same geography as much as possible. Make sure the only variable is the channel.
When all else is equal, I wondered at the time, which channels perform the best at the top of the funnel? Well, today, I have obtained research from major analyst and consultancy firms that helps to answer that question.