Case Study: Connecting Awareness to Sales

A common client goal is brand awareness, but that often or always ladders up to a larger goal: revenue. Such was the case with a CPG client, who tasked us with growing awareness through a video-first media strategy, where there were no conversion tactics in market. This case study describes how we increased awareness for that client and then, using advanced analytics, demonstrated the impact of awareness on sales. This exercise is critical for CPG brands sold primarily in-store, where every conversion cannot be attributed to a trackable, digital source.

Since awareness was a key brand KPI, we implemented a monthly brand health tracker in order to consistently measure awareness before, during, and after the campaign, including, among other factors, top of mind awareness, purchase intent, perception, un-aided and aided awareness, and ad recall of a target-defined panel.   

We used the tracker data to conduct a correlation analysis to see the influential impact of one KPI to another. In regression analysis, a factor typically has more stickiness in a model if it is correlated +20% to the KPI. That was our benchmark for determining the causal relationship between spend, awareness, and sales.

That first analysis saw that the relative lift in awareness amongst the target had a 75% correlation to media spend, proving that media spend moved the needle on awareness. This was an incredibly strong correlation, which inspired us to go one step further.

In our second analysis, when we stripped out seasonality and analyzed the lift in Aided Awareness compared to the lift in HH penetration, we saw strong correlation between the two KPIs. This correlation was 70% above benchmark, despite brand inventory issues during the time period.

These analyses allowed the brand to confidently launch an awareness video-first campaign, understanding that the positive relationship between media, awareness, and HH penetration had been proved. Using a matched market test post campaign, we determined the actual lift and ROAS for paid media awareness efforts.* For our CPG client, we drove a 7% lift in sales from media, at an efficient, profitable ROAS of $1.81.

The profitability of this campaign is important; a brand can spend millions of dollars and see a lift, but lose marketing efficiency. In summary, we proved that an awareness campaign drove immediate short-term profit for our non-ecommerce client, while also increasing aided awareness 32% YoY.

If your CPG brand is looking to approach marketing through data and better prove marketing results, connect with us.

*External factors such as changes in distribution, promotions, and seasonality were accounted for in the analysis.