Earned and paid-for media coverage. Why combine them?
Clients often ask whether we can measure the impact of paid advertorials in online versions of traditional media. They’re keen to know whether ‘pay to play’ opportunities work.
The answer is often ‘Yes, they do’. But there’s a caveat. It depends where the advertorials are placed. They are often most effective in high-audience online outlets, where their effect amplifies that achieved by bread-and-butter earned news coverage, features and campaign-related content.
The reason they work so well together is that the audience doesn’t necessarily always recognise when content is paid for, even though it must be clearly marked as an advertisement. If they do see this, they often won’t care. When the content is engaging and aligns with their interests in a brand they are already familiar with, why not also read the ad material?
We’ve seen great examples of this for clients who use advertorials as part of their storytelling. Let’s take thesun.co.uk, for example. One of our client brands achieves regular high-audience earned coverage, which feeds through into positive brand buzz. Paid content is also placed in thesun.co.uk and often it’s hard to tell them apart. A journalist review resulting from a press trip to a holiday destination is not so different from a detailed overview of a specific destination and its attractions which forms part of the promotional content for the annual Black Friday sale.
What matters is the size of audience generated in total for this coverage. Whether it’s paid or earned, the larger the combined audience, the more likely that it will drive consumer engagement through the funnel, from ad awareness, to reputation, consideration and purchase intent. In the right publications, advertorials amplify the impact of earned media coverage and vice versa.
It would certainly be incorrect to assume that only the paid content is driving awareness and consumer consideration. Logically, why would that be the case in a publication which carries both? PR should take the credit for its role in generating higher audience numbers. In any event, Metricomm’s analysis can differentiate between the outcomes from paid and earned coverage, to assist planning and budget allocation.
In some organisations the PR team is not directly responsible for placing advertorial content and wants us to measure only earned articles. We always maintain that the team should be aware of the relative impact of earned and paid in the same publications, even if they don’t own the advertising budget. The second recommendation is that they work closely with their advertising colleagues, to understand how the audience for different types of content impacts results over time. Knowing this, they can collaborate to maximise both media planning and media relations activities.
If you’d like to understand the real impact that your paid, earned and owned media really having on audience opinions and actual behaviour, then contact us on hello@metricomm.com or complete the form below.
