What is Ad Recall in Market Research?

Spend. Spend. Spend. The world of advertising is all about spending money to reach targeted geographies, targeted users, and generate revenue. Although the days of digital marketing have made advertising easier to track and measure, an enormous gap still exists in the industry between market research and advertising.

Digital analytics do an excellent job at telling the story about the "what?" and "who?" Who clicked our ad? How much engagement did our ad have? What did the impressions look like? What was our cost per click? All of these questions can be answered through simple social media analytics or Google Analytics data.

Where advertising data falls short is the "why?" Market research helps fills the gap on some of those unattainable ancillary metrics and measures which don't exist in Google Analytics or social media analytics.

This is where ad recall market research enters the fold.

What is Ad Recall in Market Research?

Find out more about ad recall market research in this article.

What is ad recall in market research?

The market research first involves exposing the audience to the advertisement. Years ago ad recall was centered around television commercials in particular, but nowadays, ad recall stretches into all forms of digital marketing as well.

After the respondent is exposed to the ad, a follow-up survey or interview is conducted with the same targeted audience to help the market research company understand what, if anything, the respondent recalled about the advertisement.

If they remember anything in particular, the survey or interviewer can dive deeper on specifics such as brand tie-ins, sentiment, feelings, emotions, likes, and dislikes.

In summary, ad recall market research is the process of following up with an audience after an advertisement is run to understand what the respondents recall about the advertisement, if anything. This is the essence of ad recall market research.

How is ad recall research used?

There are several ways ad recall market research can be used. Some brands choose to go the aided route where the ad recall begins with "Do you remember seeing an advertisement for Tide in the past 24 hours on social media?"

If the respondent does, a path of questions is developed to help the market research team understand how the exposed recall audience liked the ad and their feelings toward it.

Another option is to move in the unaided route which would look something like "Do you remember seeing an advertisement for laundry detergent in the past 24 hours?"

Or even a more strict and blinded approach is, "What advertisements do you recall seeing on your social media feed in the past 24 hours?"

There are pros and cons to each approach. Sometimes it helps to start unaided before progressing to aided. Depending on the platform, recall rate could be low which puts the market research team at a disadvantage because sample sizes will be small on follow-up questions.

Obviously recall on a Superbowl commercial will be higher than a banner ad you run on a local news site in July. So keep this in mind as you are designing your ad recall survey.

Here are ways market research helps advertising.

What are the ad recall benefits?

As mentioned above, ad recall market research adds depth, value, and feedback on your advertising campaigns. For your exposed audience, it helps you understand drivers to positive sentiment and triggers which may push a customer to purchase. It identifies pieces of the advertisement which were most memorable which can be echoed or amplified in the next round of the campaign to increase awareness, engagement, and ROI of the ads.

Contact Our Market Research Company

Drive Research is a market research company with our main offices in Syracuse, NY. Our team works with a number of advertising agencies across the country to assist with testing image, awareness, and ad recall for brands.

Questions about ad recall? Need a proposal?

Contact us in any of the following ways below.

Message us on our website
Email us at info@driveresearch.com
Call us at 888-725-DATA
Text us at 315-303-2040

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