9 December 2023
The first-ever study of radio advertising campaigns has revealed the findings on the effect of the campaigns on the sales and profitability of a leading retail chain. The detailed study also shows how radio promotions can generate substantial revenues, increase customer base, and increase cross-selling, even after the promotion is over. Using the proposed evaluation framework, the analysis not only verified the efficiency of the retailer’s marketing initiatives but also offered recommendations for enhancing the efficiency of future advertising campaigns. This success story shows how the use of data can help in getting the most out of the investment in traditional media campaigns.
Ankit Bansal is a well-known specialist in the field of marketing campaign analysis and has contributed significantly to his organization by performing a unique job of analyzing radio campaigns. While he has not climbed the corporate ladder or received official recognition, his work has been valued greatly by a large retailer because of the specific business strategies he offered through his analysis.
His project provided the retailer with assurance that their radio advertising campaigns were helping boost their sales, which was evidence that such marketing initiatives should be sustained. His work also exposed various parameters, including which specific lines of business reaped most of the benefits of promotional campaigns.
According to the information, the retailer has recorded a significant revenue uplift of about $5 million per year, some business segments have a 20% uplift in revenue. “They also pointed to an increase in the customer base by 15% and cross sales by approximately 5%,” he said. Another piece of information that Bansal highlighted was the ‘decay effect’ of radio ads, while sales would not occur during the campaign, but would occur in the weeks after the campaign was over.
Bansal has used the same concepts in other industries for example insurance and CPG industries to assess the performance of campaigns or to benchmark between groups to know the effect of various marketing treatments. These industries have benefited from his ability to analyze data and then come up with business solutions that are applicable.
With regard to risks, he experienced many a major setback in the course of this project. Another difficulty was to determine which group of people would be suitable for comparison with the experimental group. The control group had to be similar to the test group in all aspects in order to obtain a clear comparison. Seasonality was also an issue; the test and control stores both sold less during the time of the test due to seasonality, but the reduction was smaller in the test store, which supports the effectiveness of the radio campaign.
However, data access and data preparation added other challenges to the study. He had to work on large datasets and in such cases, an individual buyer’s purchase history could distort the statistics. This needed proper handling of data in order to clear them up for analysis and come up with reliable results as indicated by Leek et al.
Moreover, Bansal has also written on the method for assessing campaign effectiveness in other industries, using his knowledge of insurance and CPG industries to evaluate the marketing campaign. These projects have also yielded significant results that have pointed to higher revenues and customer interactions.
His tips on the approach followed in the assessment of campaign effectiveness provide useful information for future research. Bansal also notes that while pre and post-campaign data are important, the two should be combined in order to get a full picture of the success of the campaigns. The most significant part of this strategy is to determine the time of the ‘cooling-off’ between the pre-and post-campaign phases. This period, which can vary depending on the type of the advertisement, whether radio, TV, social media, etc., must be identified and then omitted from the analysis because it will distort the results.
In conclusion, through his work, Ankit Bansal has not only contributed to the success of his current organization but has also set a new benchmark for assessing and enhancing marketing campaigns. His sound approach provides a lasting and flexible tool for assessing the effects of different advertising initiatives, which would allow for correct decisions that lead to both the short-term and long-term success of businesses.