I’m hoping to get your view on connecting the dots between whether your paid media budget is sufficient to deliver your penetration targets.

Our task is to improve brand consideration to drive penetration.

I have a series of data points (budget, targets, campaign impressions / R&F, my brands conversion funnel), but could do with a data point that connects them. For example, £1m investment improves conversion from awareness to consideration by 1%, or frequency of 5 moves by 1%, frequency 10 by 2% etc.

I appreciate there will be a number of factors, but if there is some guidance at a high / industry / best practice level that would be great.

Marketers are deluged by data these days, so a rule of thumb like “a 1% increase in penetration costs X” would be very handy. However, there are a number of factors that limit the usefulness of rules of thumb. First, the cost X might be right this year, but not next year, so you would need a new rule. Second, if you want to achieve a 2% increase, the answer will not be to spend 2 times X, because advertising has diminishing returns. Similarly, frequency usually has a wear-in and a wear-out effect, so increasing frequency may not increase response (e.g., clicks) but reduce it.

Instead of trying to predict the effects of media plans (e.g., using a marketing mix model), the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute recommends sticking to a set of empirically tested key media principles. If you continuously reach all category buyers, you maximise your chances of increasing penetration. Mass media like TV may not reach all category buyers, so you need to use other media like digital video or outdoor. Measuring unduplicated reach is hard when each medium marks its own homework. The Institute will soon be releasing a new product that measures unduplicated reach of light, medium, and heavy category buyers. The Institute has guidelines about how to set the size of the media budget.

Here are some reports and articles around this topic:

BEST PRACTICE: Ehrenberg-Bass Institute Key Media Principles
Advertising budgeting: a re-investigation of the evidence on brand size and spend.
Will investing more than your brand’s Share of Voice increase its Share of Market?

S.B.
03 May 2021