Moneyball: Devil’s in the Details (i.e., the Data)
• The latest NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study shows interesting shifts in the percentages who pay attention to ads in various channels. That’s important information if you’re planning a marketing program for the spring ratings starting in about six weeks.
The table below shows 17 marketing channels tracked from our prior study conducted last summer. One big change is the rise in attention being paid to ads on Connected TV/OTT (+4) and YouTube (+3), corresponding with a drop in attention being paid to ads on Broadcast/Cable TV (-2). As people cut cable, more rely on Connected TV/OTT and more are viewing YouTube on their home TV screen – and the ads are impactful and look great.
Facebook and X/Twitter show increases in ad attention compared to last summer’s study, but the big change on social media is the increase in ad attention for TikTok (+3). TikTok can be so engaging, so there’s no surprise there. Meanwhile, Instagram drops a couple of points – despite liberally adopting practices from TikTok.
For stations in diary markets, the additional awareness that can be built from people simply paying attention to an ad can be all that’s needed to remind listeners to note the station when completing their diary. For PPM markets you need listeners to take action: to tune into a different station, to listen at additional times of day, to enter a contest, etc. For those cases you’re interested not only in people being aware of your ad, but also taking some action as a result. The wider marketing business thinks of this conversion as the purchase funnel and NuVoodoo has developed a new metric called the “Marketing Funnel Conversion Index.”
Our new Marketing Funnel Conversion Index looks at the people who say they go on to take action as the result of an ad as a function of those who say they pay attention to ads on a given platform. To make the numbers easily comparable across demographic breaks and across different constituencies, we express the number as an index against the mean for that demo or constituency.
These new numbers give the NuVoodoo marketing team a powerful tool to guide how much they lean on any given platform depending on demographics, the types of listeners targeted, and the goal of the campaign. The prices paid for inventory on different ad channels aren’t on a level playing field at all. You might choose to go with a less efficient channel in terms of pure ad attention because it turns out to be more effective at converting those impressions into actions.
We’re showing the Marketing Funnel Conversion Index results for the total sample in the table below. These numbers reflect the entire nationwide sample of 14-54s – and make sense intuitively. Website ads and emails are more likely to convert to an action, while YouTube and Connected TV/OTT (which are becoming stronger at generating attention) are less likely to get those impressions converted to actions.
We’re always compelled to point out that the devil is in the details. The numbers shift strikingly across generations, across listening constituencies, among those most likely to participate in the ratings – and among those who are most likely to participate in the ratings AND enter a contest. It’s, frankly, too much to set out in this type of forum.
Nearly four years after the start of the covid pandemic, we’ve noticed fatigue with the larger group webinars. So, we’re offering to show the deeper results here to smaller groups to avoid the problem of flying over data that someone is trying to get their arms around; to be able to answer questions on the fly with fewer people in attendance; to make the experience less impersonal.
In less than 20 minutes you’ll get six key takeaways that cover new ground for 2024 to help your radio station play and win the ratings game. We’re glad to review the data for individual stations or clusters, consultants, executives, etc. We’ll ask only 20 minutes for a sales-pitch-free Zoom, but we’re glad to spend as much time as needed to answer questions and talk about the data.
By adhering to the data, placing efficient ad buys, and paying hawklike attention to the metrics, our marketing team helped stations achieve some impressive wins last fall in markets big and not-so-big (think below market #200). It’s the compound effect of using the data to do lots of little things better that can lead to dramatic results. An email to tellmemore@nuvoodoo.com will get you scheduled for a presentation of our latest data.
