Article: “In Defense of Experimental Advertising”
Source: AdvertisingAge – CMO Strategy

One of the biggest and difficult challenges marketers face is to prove that their advertising campaigns are causing the results and not a mere correlation.
Like the writer expresses, causality and correlation are easily confused.
The challenge is to measure the effects of an advertising campaign being effectuated, but also measure the results in the absence of an advertising campaign.

It all comes down to measure, measure and keep measuring and trying to figure out what the causalities are, what causes the effects and what are correlations between different entities. The challenge is to set up experiments which are put in a ‘laboratorium setting’ where all aspects are kept the same and one aspect is being tested, my personal experience is that the exlusion of all aspects (except one) is difficult.

From the Internet point of perspective, it offers many possibilities to execute experiments and test and learn from their advertising campaigns, products/services and target audiences and how they interact.

What kind of advertising experiments do you conduct?

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