Bayer manages more than 170 consumer health brands with operations in 83 countries. Keeping score of brand creative on digital channels is among the Bayer necessities.

Before 2021, the consumer health care products marketer didn’t have a consistent approach, definition or key performance indicator to measure creative quality. The challenge was to raise the bar of creative quality, ensure that digital spending drove maximum impact and be at the forefront of data-driven marketing.

Using a creative data platform from CreativeX, Bayer was able to leverage previously untapped data sitting behind its global ads. Bayer introduced the Creative Quality Score, a global metric that tracks adherence to statistically validated creative best practices across digital platforms. The Creative Quality Score is now a core part of Bayer’s marketing KPIs.

This effort took gold for Creative Data Campaign of the Year among suppliers, vendors and pharmaceutical companies in the Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards 2023.

Since adopting the technology, Bayer creative teams have analyzed more than 32,000 pre-flight and more than 127,000 in-flight assets to determine their Creative Quality Score, ensuring that only assets with high creative quality were launched. Building on this, Bayer developed a data-backed understanding of key creative elements that consistently drive better ad performance and reach.

Adhering to platform best practices has driven improvements in ad performance. Across both Google (part of Alphabet) and Meta Platforms (parent of Facebook and Instagram), for every 10 percentage point increase in Creative Quality Score, Bayer reported an almost 2% fall in cost per thousand impressions. On YouTube, Bayer reported a 107% increase in brand lift based on ad recall and awareness.

“Creative excellence is more than just best practices,” said Joanna Macuck, Bayer’s global content excellence manager, “but best practices ensure maximizing the value of our media spend, making each advertising dollar work harder.”