Even though advertising provides numerous advantages, its eventual aim consists of maximizing the revenue (Hahn and Davis 159). Therefore, the assessment of the effectiveness of an advertising campaign includes defining the return on investment in the financial equivalent.
The inputs of advertising are easily known, so are the market outputs that can be expressed in a monetary equivalent, that is, not the brand popularity or the reputation (Wells 5-15). The question of how to connect the two is not easily answered, mostly due to the fact that the key processes, which determine the response of customers to advertising, are mental (Tellis 32-34). These mental processes cannot be assessed in any case; however, some of their results can be noticed.
It appears logical to regard surveys as some kind of monitoring tool for the mental processes of the buyers; the key aim of such a survey would consist in understanding what has caused a customer to buy the product or use the service. This tool, naturally, has a number of drawbacks. First of all, surveys are not very reliable; therefore, this tool needs to be consistently planned and, most certainly, organized by specialists. The second problem results from the first one: such a survey would require impressive funding. This problem could be solved by the introduction of less consistent surveys, for example, for the websites of a company.
These surveys are not going to be very reliable, but they can provide the information in greater quantities and more often. By assessing the two types of surveys, a more or less consistent image of the buyers’ thinking process could be found.
Given the difficulties related to the creation of a proper tool for the measurement of the role of advertising in extra revenue, surveying may be considered an option despite its drawbacks. Still, even with this tool, knowing if the additional revenue is the result of advertising is impossible.
Works Cited
Hahn, Fred E, and Tom Davis. Do-It-Yourself Advertising And Promotion. Hoboken, New Jersey: J. Wiley, 2003. Print.
Tellis, Gerard J. Effective Advertising. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2004. Print.
Wells, William D. Measuring Advertising Effectiveness. New York, New Y: Psychology Press, 2014. Print.