Doug Schumacher anticipates how the creatives tested last week will fare across different content channels.

Campaign Details: Client: Sugarshots, Inc. Agency: Basement, Inc. Ad Network: 24/7 Real Media Ad Serving + Tracking: Atlas DMT Site Analytics: Think Metrics   View entire campaign    Ad 1 Taste as primary benefit with granulated sugar reference   Ad 2 Dissolvability as primary benefit with granulated sugar reference   Ad 3 Hybrid message of first two benefits   Ad 4 Taste as sole benefit, no granulated sugar reference

Last week we launched the iMedia Sugar Shots case study with our first round of tests to determine the most effective strategy. Given that we’re dealing with both a new product and new category (in the U.S.), there are some fundamental questions that we attempted to resolve. Primarily, how well is the category understood, and which of the product’s primary benefits will be most effective?

Our guess going in was that taste would be the dominant benefit, despite some evidence that showed it wasn’t a given. That’s what played out, and now we’re going to look at how that creative did across some of the different content channels and behavioral groupings within the media plan.

Here’s the chart of our tests date:

As stated, our previous test assessed the general effectiveness of different strategic positions. This week’s test is really an extension of that test, only we’ll look at how the strategies perform relative to different audience segments. Specifically, audiences segmented by both content channels and viewer behavioral patterns.

Last week’s and this week’s tests both have the same creative units and the same media plan. We’re just viewing the information from different angles. So in assessing performance this week, we’ll also be using data from the previous week. I’m covering these tests independently for two reasons: Each on its own is a lot of ground to cover in a single article. And we needed the second week to accumulate statistical significance for the channel and behavioral data.

Testing Strategy

This test takes advantage of several capabilities of our advertising network, 24/7 Real Media.

Their media network of sites, 24/7 Web Alliance, includes over 850 sites, all grouped into 16 different categories based on content type. That presents a good opportunity to gather target audience information based on which content channels are generating the best response rates.

Furthermore, 24/7 OnTarget is a powerful behavioral targeting tool that operates within their network, giving us the ability to layer an audience behavioral group on top of the content channel segments.

For anyone not familiar with behavioral targeting, as the name suggests, it’s a method of audience targeting based on past internet behavior. The key behavior being that the viewer has visited sites in a given content category within the past 30 days, regardless of what content channel they happen to be on at the moment they see our ad.

Media Channels

To generate the best results in the least amount of time and within a given number of impressions, we’ve taken the initial 16 content channels of 24/7 Web Alliance, and narrowed them down to the four that seem most relevant. We can always extend the analysis to additional user groups at future points, but to test with any level of efficiency, it’s usually essential to make certain hedges and assumptions based on historical data and practical experience.

The following are the four content channels that we’ll be running this campaign in.

• Health: Food is central to many health topics, and people interested in health naturally pay close attention to what they eat. Furthermore, many of the sites in this category are food sites.
• Entertainment: We feel Sugarshots has a lot of potential lifestyle appeal, so we’re interested in results from this channel.
• Male Interest / Female Interest: Differences by gender is almost always something to be monitored. It’s also an easy way to target going forward, and can lead to a lot of promotional and product development ideas.

Media by Behavior

Using 24/7’s OnTarget behavioral targeting solution, we can get a much more granular view of how different groups are responding. Behavioral targeting is like a layer over the Content Channel breakdown. It enables us to view how different behavioral groups respond within the Content Channels.

The behavioral groups we’re testing for include:

• Static: This is the control group, which involves no behavioral targeting in any of the channels.
• Health: We’ll test the same health factor in all four of the content channels.
• Women’s Interest: Similarly, we’ll test the Women’s Interest behavior across all the content channels.

A likely thought here would be, Why test the Health Behavior in the Health Channel? The answer is, this can be a way to gauge both the concentration of interest on the topic, as well as show the relative impact of the strategy or tactic, whether or not the viewer is in that particular mindset at the moment.

Testing Construct

Here’s how the test looks across the grid.

Analysis Outline

Because this week’s test is the paired bookend of last week’s test, we’re going to be using the same metrics, but from channel and behavioral views. We’ll also be looking at how the different audience’s respond to the different strategies.

The key performance indicators we’ll be watching are:

Response Rates

• Visits per 1000 impressions
• Click-thru rate

Depth of Visit

• Traffic levels on the various product information pages

Purchase Intent

• Traffic levels to the purchase page, the only page with pricing information

Actual Sales

• Confirmed product sales

We’ve come to the ‘Guess the Winner’ part of the article. Given that this is a natural food product, and competes with natural artificial sweeteners, I predict the banners will perform well in the health section.

It also wouldn’t surprise me if women tested better than men, given their heavy influence in the consumer packaged goods category.

The Entertainment angle will be interesting to monitor, because as we’ve stated, we feel the product has a lot of life-style appeal. That may not project in these strategic tests, and may be a content area we’ll want to re-address in creative explorations later in Phase Three.

Make your predictions. And stop by Thursday for the results.

Doug Schumacher is the President of Basement, Inc.