How long does it take for my advertising campaign to work?

For example, for a product that people are actively looking for like sun tan lotion in the summer or a newly published book by a favourite author, you could see results from your advertisement after it has appeared just a few times. 

 

If you are launching a new product or service, your advertising must first raise awareness before creating enough interest for your potential customers to contact you or visit your website. This will be a much longer term project involving research and testing before you start to advertise. You will probably need to include several stages in your campaign to achieve your objectives. 

 

In a nutshell, you need to understand your customers and what they are looking for as well as your own goals before you can answer the question ‘how long will it take for my advertising to work?’. There are also some other things to think about. 

 

The advertising media you choose will work in different ways, so pay per click online advertising will perform differently to print advertising or out of home (OOH) adverts on bus stops and bill boards for example. 

 

If you have a generous budget, you could test multiple advertising options to see what works best for your business and to increase your impact. However, most businesses want to optimise results straightaway, so a more focussed approach is needed. 

 

Knowing your customers, you might be confident that print advertising is a good way to reach them. Then you will need to choose the publications they are most likely to read and the position for your advertisement that will catch their attention. 

 

A single advertisement won’t usually be enough to generate sales for your business. The ‘effective frequency’ of your advertising is the number of times someone in your target audience will have opportunities to see your advertisement before they understand it, remember it, and act on it. 

 

The number of times your advertisement appears is not the same as the likelihood of it being seen. For example, if your advertisement appeared on the same page of a weekly publication for eight weeks someone in your target audience might only notice it twice. Having noticed it, they might need to see it two or three more times before they understand and remember what you’re offering. Even then, they might not need your product or service straightaway, so repetition is also important. 

 

Awareness tracking is a measure of your customer’s knowledge of your brand. Regular advertising will maintain awareness so that your customer will contact you first when they need what you provide. 

 

Of course, people might stop noticing your advertisement if it’s always in the same format and in the same place. Small adjustments and special offers can be helpful to re-engage their interest. 

 

If you have seen the response rate to your advertising fall consistently then it might be time to consider a fresh approach while maintaining your branding. This is where A/B testing can be helpful to compare your existing advertisement with a version that has a different headline or call to action, for example. Using this approach will help you to understand what your customers are looking for. 

 

Many advertisers in Pulse magazine have been with us for many years. Our magazines are often kept and re-read multiple times by family members and visitors in people’s homes, so they can help you to reach and remind your audience regularly.