Measuring the effectiveness of advertising

It is not only the money's worth received in service from the agency, but the money's worth received in terms of added sales that business men are concerned with. It is natural that business should ask, "How can we tell whether we are getting our money's worth?"
Gradually, an appraisal formula is beginning to emerge, which some marketing observers feel may contain considerable usefulness for business in its effort to determine how effective specific advertising campaigns are. But the marketing student must always remember that advertising is only one segment of the total selling effort. It will always be difficult to establish with accuracy that one advertisement or an advertising campaign was responsible for a determined amount of sales. At least, however, a more scientific measure is possible. Such an attempt would include six specific factors:
Establishing the specific purpose of the advertisement or the campaign. Generalities, such as getting more sales, will not do. Management must establish precisely what it proposes to accomplish with the specific message or series of messages. This then becomes the standard against which is measured the effectiveness of the advertising.
Determining the audience. As we have seen, the type of buyer or prospective buyer influences the choice of media. The appeal of any product is personal and individual. There is no such thing as mass appeal. All purchases, when made, are individual.
To be effective, therefore, advertising must be as personal as possible and must appeal to a specific audience. The student will note once again, the need for customer-orientation.
Evaluating the media. Evaluating the media is closely connected with the point we just made about determining the audience. What media do we choose to reach the specific audience we want to reach? Should we use the Saturday Evening Post to reach a group of engineers? Should we advertise a new instant dessert in a farm or business publication?
Evaluating the message. It is necessary to ask whether the message is proper for the medium selected. Is it the best message we can send to this chosen audience? Is the message convincing and believable? Is it clear? Is it the type of message that gets across best through the medium chosen?
Evaluating advertising as a factor of the total sales effort. Admittedly, the problem of evaluating advertising as a factor of the total sales effort is one of the most difficult of all assignments. What share of the total effort is due to advertising, to promotions, to personal sales effort, and to the reputation of the company? What part does a good package play? By study
and judgment, it is possible to establish the share of credit that should go to advertising in the total sales effort.
Having now evaluated all five parts, we evaluate the total. Did we establish clear objectives? Did we aim our message at the proper audience? Did we use the proper media to reach that audience? Did we use the most convincing message for that audience? Did we create the proper company and product image? How much of the total job did we assign to advertising, to personal sales, to other promotional efforts?
We still lack quantitative scales with which to meas¬ure several of these factors. But the increasing reliance of marketing management on research gives hope that we shall, through research, be able to establish an acceptable formula which can be used in measuring the effectiveness of advertising.