Marketers and agency executives are convinced targeting makes a big difference in ad effectiveness. Trouble is, they’re wrong—at least to the extent they value it over creative quality and reach.

Those are the conclusions of Westwood One from a recent Advertiser Perceptions survey of 305 marketers and agency people, compared to results of a landmark 2017 study conducted by NCSolutions of what factors drove sales impact for 500 packaged goods campaigns.

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One caveat: The survey was done by a company that sells radio advertising. But Pierre Bouvard, chief insights officer of Cumulus Media and Westwood One, says the idea wasn’t to buttress the case for radio.

The NCS data support the relative value of reach across TV or digital too, he says. And, besides, creative quality, rather than any media planning and buying decisions, was the biggest success driver in the NC Solutions research Bouvard cites.

The other caveat is that the agency people surveyed were from media agencies, who are more likely to value media over creative. But Bouvard notes that the survey results were virtually identical among the marketer and agency sub-groups.

Overall, marketers and media agency folks gave targeting 2.5 times more credit than it deserves for ad effectiveness, Bouvard says, based on the NCS study, which used Nielsen media exposure and Catalina sales impact data.

Survey respondents said targeting is responsible for 22% of ad impact—the biggest single factor cited. But the NCS study found only 9% of sales lift from ads can be attributed to targeting.

On the other hand, survey respondents dramatically under-credited creative, giving it only 17% of the credit for ad success, though NCS found it responsible for 47%.

Reach also got credit for only 17% of ad success from survey respondents, while NCS found it actually accounts for 22%. Context and recency (how recently people have seen ads), like targeting, also got far more credit from marketers and media agency executives than they deserve, per NCS.

Bouvard suspects targeting, context and recency get so much credit because they’re things that are easier to accomplish than stronger creative or broader reach.

'Drag the whole thing down'

“No matter how good a plan you put together, and no matter how careful and thoughtful your media plan, if the creative doesn’t resonate or have an emotional impact, it’s going to drag the whole thing down,” Bouvard says.

If there’s a bright spot, it’s that targeting is getting harder and more expensive anyway. The impending loss of third-party cookies from Google Chrome will make targeting harder to pull off. Alternatives marketers have been turning to, such as Google search or advertising powered by retailers and their data—such as Amazon, Walmart and Target—all have seen fast-rising costs in recent months.

“There’s a dangerous myth that I have a target and anything outside that is waste,” Bouvard says. But the cost of targeting may surpass savings from cutting the so-called waste.

The other problem is that marketers, particularly CPG marketers, often target too closely, missing potential buyers, he says, citing former Colgate-Palmolive Co. insights executive, now Baruch College professor Elyse Kane, who argues that companies often target too narrowly or misidentify targets, in part because people move in and out of target groups.

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