Study Reveals: For Significantly More Brand Awareness, Choose Digital Display Advertising over Facebook
Tempted to invest your hard-earned marketing dollars in paid social to boost brand awareness? Better not! A new study by Engagement Labs commissioned by G/O Media reveals that digital display advertising drives significantly more brand awareness than paid social.
The analysis is based on syndicated online and offline consumer conversation tracking from Engagement Labs over the period from January 2018 – May 2021, with media expenditure data that Engagement Labs procured from Kantar Media.
G/O Media specifically sought to understand the role of paid social vs. digital display advertising and ascertain which has the greater ability to drive people to share online and talk offline. The overall project goal was to determine the impact of advertiser investment in digital paid media (display, online video, mobile app, mobile web video) vs paid Facebook advertising in driving offline conversations and online mentions. The analysis was undertaken for 10 leading brands, 5 each in the tech and beverage categories. Curious to learn more? Dive deeper here:
- Going market-specific to establish the pattern. The study went deep into specific marketers in two big spending categories and for every tech and beverage brand in the study the results were clear. The technology and beverage industries were chosen based on their two distinct consumer purchasing mindsets and digital/social advertising spend.
- Digital excels both online and offline. The study showed that digital display ads contribute significantly more than Facebook to both offline and online volume of conversations for marketers. The findings were beyond surprising: they revealed that the contribution from digital advertising to the average tech brand’s offline conversations is 15.8% vs 3.3% for paid social on Facebook. Online, the average tech brand has an 8.3% contribution from digital and 1.9% from paid social. In the beverage category, the average brand has a 9.6% contribution from digital advertising on offline conversation vs 2.4% from paid social.
The study also found that digital display media is highly effective at both online and offline performance for brands – meaning the digital advertising that consumers engage with isn’t siloed to the online space. It also impacts face-to-face and other offline conversations.
- Superior ROI from digital display vs. paid social on Facebook. The third key finding from the study is the superior ROI from digital display vs. paid social on Facebook in terms of ability to drive offline and online conversations. The study looked at what is the value of an additional dollar of digital advertising vs paid social media on Facebook on increased offline and online conversations and finds that digital ads have a higher estimated ROI than paid social for both offline and online. This was true for both categories.
According to Ed Keller, CEO of Engagement Labs, knowing where to invest to drive social influence can make a big difference and a much-needed competitive edge for brands to prosper in a marketplace that is increasingly driven by consumer conversation and recommendations. We couldn’t agree more. Novelty Media, via SmartAd, combines user attention with contextual relevance, thus offering marketers a strong driver of ad effectiveness, brand conversation and positive business outcomes. Keep following our Marketing Bites to find out more about our innovative media channel.