Start an outdoor advertising test with a verifiable hypothesis: what change do you expect, and which indicators will you use to evaluate it? Keep the advertising message short. Choose a location along the customer journey—where customers need information or decide where to go next.
To evaluate the test, you can review sales in the advertised category and collect customers’ answers about how they learned about the promotion. Increased sales after an ad launches do not, by themselves, prove that the ad caused the increase. Treat before-and-after comparisons with care.
Write down the hypothesis and indicators before the test begins
State an expected change that can be measured. For example: “During the outdoor advertising test, sales in the product category featured in the ad will increase.” This is an assumption to test.
Decide what data you will collect. For this hypothesis, sales in the advertised category can serve as an indicator. If the message is about a promotion, you can also count separately the responses that identify outdoor advertising as the source of information about it.
Write down the plan:
- Which assumption you are testing.
- Which indicators you will evaluate.
- Over what period you will collect data.
- Which data you will compare the results with.
Keep the message brief
Remove words that do not help customers understand the offer. Cut repetition and empty phrasing.
For example, use “Shoe care products” instead of “At our store, you can buy products for shoe care.” Review each phrase and keep the information customers need.
Evaluate the location along the customer journey
Consider the location in terms of the customer’s next step. Where do customers need information about the store? Where do they decide where to go next?
For each option, note at what point in the journey a person will see the message and which decision it should support. This will help you form a hypothesis about the location to test.
Collect customers’ answers about how they learned about the offer
If the ad announces a promotion, ask customers where they heard about it.
In Torgsoft, you can set up this survey and analyze the answers. A reminder to ask the question appears to the sales assistant before the receipt is paid. This feature is described on the Torgsoft marketing tools page.
The survey results show the information sources named by customers. The answers alone do not prove that the advertising caused a change in sales.
Review category sales and assess the limits of your conclusion
In Torgsoft, the “Sales analysis by product type” mode shows trading results by product category. Use this data to review sales in the category featured in the ad. Learn more on the store sales analysis page.
Compare the indicators you collected with the original hypothesis. Record the change in sales and customers’ answers about how they learned about the offer separately.
A control comparison helps evaluate the advertising effect. If you only have data from before and after the test, limit your conclusion to the observation: sales increased, decreased, or stayed the same. This comparison is not enough to establish that outdoor advertising caused the change.
Go back to the previous step