Learn What Drives Results for Your Business Using Incrementality Measurement

It's not always easy to understand what works in advertising, but with new technologies and more data available than ever before, businesses can adopt new approaches to measurement to gain a better understanding of what drives results.

The Measurement Council, formed by Facebook and its partners in November 2016, is a group of global industry leaders, top brands and measurement specialists working to inform how the industry defines true business value and encourage the adoption of measurement practices that lead to improved marketing outcomes. Through comprehensive research and review, the Measurement Council identified incrementality measurement as one of the best signals for ROI.

The goal of incrementality measurement is to calculate a lift in ad performance by comparing differences in outcomes between a group of people shown an ad and a comparable control group that did not see the ad. This helps advertisers identify how much business value is driven and can therefore be critical in determining the most effective use of ad dollars and justifying investments. Incrementality measurement uses a test vs. control format to compare different variables in ad campaigns. On Facebook, this is done through solutions such as Facebook Brand Lift, Facebook Conversion Lift, Facebook Test and Learn and Nielsen Cross-Platform Brand Effect (a Facebook measurement partner solution). By isolating a variable, such as creative or audience, in experimental conditions and then connecting it to business results, advertisers can determine its effectiveness and then shift budgets and tactics accordingly to improve future ad performance.

Industry leaders including Netflix, Airbnb, eBay and Booking.com have seen success from using incrementality to measure ad effectiveness, evaluate tactics and channels, and adapt their marketing strategies to maximize ROI.

Stephan McBride, Director of Advertising Science at Netflix, said incrementality helps the entertainment company understand the effects of actions it takes in marketing to improve business operations and achieve the company's primary goal of growth.

Airbnb, the world’s largest community-driven hospitality company, relies on performance advertising to achieve growth goals for the business. Like most businesses, Airbnb has a finite budget with which to pursue those goals, so maximizing ROI on marketing spend is a top priority, and measurement plays a key role. In fact, most of Airbnb’s high-impact work in marketing this year resulted from experiments measuring incrementality and estimating the marginal efficiency of its channels. As a result of learnings from this measurement, the company was able to achieve higher returns than ever before on paid display and paid social channels.

Incrementality makes it easier for businesses to connect the dots between interactions with people and business outcomes. And by adopting incrementality measurement solutions, businesses of all sizes have the ability to increase ROI from advertising and allocate resources in a more informed and effective manner.