Ad Catalyst employs the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and ARF (Advertising Research Foundation) endorsed "test and control" measurement methodology.
Ad Catalyst monitors all creative for a given campaign (i.e. the "test" creative), along with some "control" creative (i.e. unrelated ad units) that are trafficked similarly to the ad buy being tested. All impressions are carefully recorded and tracked, and users are randomly intercepted to answer a short survey.
Results are grouped into two sets; those that have seen the campaign creative one or more times (the "test" or "exposed" group), and those that have only seen control creative (the "control" group). The difference in the responses of the two sets can be safely attributed to the only variable in the study, namely the presence of the ad campaign.
This longitudinal "test and control" approach has numerous advantages over other ad effectiveness measurement methodologies
Speed
Reliable results are delivered quickly. You do not have to plan for lead-time involved with pre-testing, or wait for a post-test phase to run, before viewing your data. Speed is also a critical benefit when trying to make mid-course campaign traffic corrections based on insights gleaned from Ad Catalyst.
Data Accuracy
The "test and control" methodology results in accurate data free of the many biases that exist in other approaches. The measurements are reflective of true ad and media placement performance among individuals known to be exposed to the creative being tested. Controllable influences such as time of day, day of week, site/page placement, etc. are all eliminated as forms of bias since they are common to both groups of respondents. Self-selection biases are also eliminated by the high participation rates with our easy-to-answer question intercepts, ensuring that each survey is completed by a truly representative sample of the audience.
Cost Effective
Ad Catalyst's methodology does not require any additional ad impressions other than those already allocated to your media buy and the control creative (typically other, unrelated client buys or house ads). This alleviates the cost of any supplemental impressions required by other methodologies.
