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Case Study: Beyond the Click
Impact of online advertising on brand favorability, purchase intent and product attributes for CPAs.
From AICPA Custom Publishing

We recently completed a study of online advertising impact in a highly competitive category of products used by CPAs. The objective? To see whether companies that advertised consistently in our e-newsletters over a six-month period were actually “moving the meter” in terms of brand awareness, product favorability and purchase intent. Six leading vendors in this category were measured between June and December of 2004, as well as the AICPA’s own product offerings in this category. Three of the vendors advertised in the AICPA’s weekly CPA Insider™ electronic newsletters and three did not.

The survey was originally sent in June 2004 to 2,000 randomly selected readers of the CPA Insider™ newsletter. The same 2,000 readers were surveyed again in December 2004. The six-month survey period covered several months in which historically there is a great deal of advertising targeted to CPAs. The survey period also covered months in which, historically, there is not usually a great deal of advertising targeted to CPAs.

Consistent advertisers outperformed occasional advertisers

The company that advertised most consistently during the six-month survey period (“Company A”) saw the biggest gain in product acceptance. Other vendors that advertised during this period also saw improvement in brand favorability and purchase intent. Vendors that did not advertise during the survey period generally saw little or no improvement in brand favorability.

Prior to starting its campaign at the beginning of the survey period, 42-percent of readers rated Company A’s products “Excellent” or “Very Good” – a number which grew to 57-percent at the conclusion of the six-month survey period. Further, the number of readers who rated Company A’s products “Not Very Good” or “Poor” dropped to 5-percent at the end of the period, from 10-percent at the beginning of the campaign.

Company B also moved the meter nicely, but not as strongly as Company A, as it advertised consistently for the first three months of the measurement period, but not at all for the second three months of the period. Company B registered an 8-percent lift in “Excellent/Very Good” ratings (vs. 15% for Company A) and a 4-percent improvement in “Not Very Good/Poor” ratings (vs. 5% for Company A).

Over the same measurement period, the AICPA’s own product offerings in this category -- while still rated No.1 by our readers – registered essentially no change in the number of respondents who rated its products “Excellent” or “Very Good,” and the AICPA registered only a slight change in the number of respondents who rated its products “Not Very Good” or “Poor.” AICPA products were promoted to members occasionally during the survey period in the e-newsletters, as well as in the AICPA’s print magazines and direct mail pieces. However, the AICPA promotions were sporadic during this period were not targeted exclusively for the e-newsletter audience.

Finally, Company C’s retained its No. 2 position throughout the survey period, but registered a slight reduction in “Excellent/Very Good” ratings and a slight increase in those who rated its products “Not Very Good” or Poor.” Company C did advertise during the survey period – but it did so in several short bursts with long periods of inactivity. Company C’s creative was oriented primarily to brand-building/brand reinforcement rather than the direct response tack taken by Companies A and B. Company C’s message points and creative materials were rarely changed over the six-month period and unlike Company A and B, it did not make use of sponsored editorials.

How they did it

Company A deployed a combination of banner ads, sponsored text links and sponsored white papers/editorials every two weeks during the six-month measurement period. Company A’s messaging throughout the campaign was oriented toward direct-response rather than brand building. A clear “call to action” was included in all of its creative elements. Company A also changed its banner creative and sponsored editorial pieces with every insertion. Company A also assigned unique URL’s to each piece of creative so it could track response on an issue-by-issue basis – and compare different creative units within the same issue.

Like Company A, Company B’s messaging was also very direct-response oriented. And like Company A, Company B deployed a variety of banners, sponsored editorials and sponsored text links, which it changed frequently.

Fate of non-advertisers

Companies that did not advertise during the survey period (Companies D, E and F) saw little or no improvement among respondents who rated them “Not Very Good/Poor.” Among readers who rated their products “Very Good/Excellent,” Company D saw an 8-percent decline in acceptance, while Company E and Company F enjoyed gains of 4-percent and 3-percent, respectively. It should be noted that while Company E did not advertise in the Insider e-newsletters, it did advertise regularly in the AICPA’s flagship magazine, The Journal of Accountancy.

Advertising surge lifts whole category

Because one, if not several, vendors were advertising at any given time throughout the survey period, the whole category registered gains in purchase intent and frequency of use throughout the category. Further, we noticed that 8-percent more respondents valued “speed/convenience” after the survey period began, than before. Speed and convenience were constant themes in the advertising messages used by Company A and by Company B.

The percentage of respondents who said they were highly likely to purchase products in the category we surveyed rose to 17-percent in December 2004, up from 13-percent when the measured advertising campaigns began in June 2004.

Finally, respondents who said they were “Frequent” or “Very Frequent” users of the surveyed product category rose 10 percentage points to 36-percent at the conclusion of the survey from 26-percent at the beginning of survey.

Click here to receive more information about this exclusive online brand impact study conducted by AICPA Custom Publishing.