How Combining TV and Facebook Advertising Yields Higher Results
Nielsen’s Total Ad Ratings (TAR) study evaluated 31 campaigns in Brazil and Mexico to reveal how TV and Facebook together boost both the reach and precision of cross-platform campaigns.
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Good news for brands in Latin America — marketers now have the potential to increase the reach and improve the targeting accuracy of their campaigns by running them on both TV and Facebook. That was the main finding of a Nielsen Total Ad Ratings (TAR) meta-analysis of 31 cross-platform campaigns across Brazil and Mexico, commissioned by Facebook. Its results show not only that TV and Facebook complement each other when it comes to reach, but also that Facebook can help marketers find the right group of people for a given campaign.
The need for cross-platform reach
With internet penetration increasing in Latin America, TV is no longer the primary channel to reach any particular group of people. For the first time for modern marketers, TV advertising doesn't offer omnipresence in a region. The TAR study we commissioned revealed what happens when Facebook ads are added to traditional TV campaigns. In Mexico, across the 16 campaigns analyzed, the study found that Facebook provided on average 17% incremental reach to TV advertising. In other words, Facebook helped brands reach an average of 2.5 million additional people, who weren't reached by TV ads alone. Over 4 million people saw the campaign on both TV and Facebook. A study from Kantar Worldpanel's showed that households reached by TV and Facebook, plus Instagram, produced a sales outcome 1.3 greater than expected.1
Facebook played a meaningful role in helping to reach non-TV viewers in Mexico2
The study also showed that Facebook's impact on reach was higher for campaigns targeted at younger audiences3. A Coca-Cola campaign targeting people ages 18-34 saw, on average, a Facebook total reach of 77% and a TV total reach of 53%.
Facebook’s incremental reach on Coca-Cola’s campaign targeted to younger audiences4 in Brazil5
A deep dive into targeting precision
Nielsen compared TV and Facebook impressions delivered on-target to test how effective each medium was in finding the right audience to each campaign.
In Brazil, over 15 campaigns tested, Facebook delivered, on average, 94% of on-target impressions, while TV achieved 60% of on-target exposures. In Mexico, over 16 campaigns tested, Facebook proved to be more than 2X as precise as TV, with 91% of impressions delivered on-target on Facebook versus 44% of exposures on-target on TV.
Marketers achieved on average over 90% of on-target impressions on Facebook in Brazil6
Marketers achieved on average over 90% of on-target impressions on Facebook in Mexico7
When we examine the results, we see that, directionally, the gap in precision between TV and Facebook may tend to be even bigger in campaigns with narrow targets. This is particularly true for campaigns aimed at younger audiences. Coca-Cola's campaign results show that Facebook was 7X more efficient in building reach for its target audience, men and women ages 18-34.
What it means for marketers
1+1=3. Combine TV and Facebook advertising to amplify your reach.
Embrace a cross-platform strategy to impact more people on different occasions — on and offline.
Make the most of your ad impressions.
According to the campaigns studied, Facebook was 2X more precise than TV in reaching a specific audience in Mexico. Try and test cross-platform targeting among your different audiences to increase the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Avoid media dispersion when targeting narrow audiences.
The more narrow your audience, the more likely the opportunities to optimize your ad spend when applying Facebook targeting.
Source unless otherwise specified:Total Ad Ratings (TAR) study, Mexico and Brazil by Nielsen (Facebook-commissioned meta-analysis of 31 cross-platform campaigns: 16 campaigns in Mexico and 15 in Brazil, April 2017).