GeoLifts: Revolutionizing Efficiency in Building Solutions

Ever feel like your marketing campaigns are just a shot in the dark? What if you could measure the true impact of your ads, down to specific geographic areas? That’s where GeoLifts come in; these use a geo-experimental methodology.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Isn’t that just A/B testing with a map?” Not quite. You’ll learn about how these lift tests utilize synthetic control methods to reveal the real incremental lift of your ad campaigns. So how do these help marketing leaders?

Table of Contents:

• What are GeoLifts and Why Should You Care?
• Understanding Synthetic Control Methods in GeoLifts
  • Setting up a GeoLift Test: A Step-by-Step Guide
  • The Power Analysis of GeoLifts and Minimum Detectable Effect
  • Addressing Common Concerns with GeoLift Testing
  • GeoLift Case Study
  • Comparing GeoLifts to Other Measurement Methods
  • Huntsman Building Solutions and GeoLift Applications
  • Tips for optimizing your GeoLift Campaigns for Success
  • Real-Life Applications and Use Cases for GeoLifts
  • Leveraging GeoLift Results to Drive Business Growth
  • The Future of GeoLift and Marketing Experimentation
  • Conclusion

What are GeoLifts and Why Should You Care?

At their core, GeoLifts are about measuring the incremental effect of a marketing campaign in a specific geographic area. They help businesses understand if their advertising efforts are truly driving sales, or if those sales would have happened anyway. Think of it as a scientific way to test marketing effectiveness at a local level.

GeoLifts are especially useful when people-based measurement, like conversion lift, isn’t an option. If you want to measure true incremental lift, these may be for you. These measurements aren’t a Meta product however; they’re for research purposes. Visit GitHub to find out more about GeoLift testing.

Here’s why startup founders, investors, and marketing leaders need to pay attention to GeoLifts:

• Data-Driven Decisions: Instead of relying on gut feelings, make decisions based on solid data about campaign performance.
• Optimized Ad Spend: Know where your money is best spent and cut budget on underperforming campaigns, ultimately maximizing return on investment.
• Targeted Strategies: Understand what messaging and channels resonate best in different geographic locations, allowing for more effective ad campaign customization.
• True Incremental Measurement: GeoLifts help you determine the true incremental sales driven by your marketing efforts, filtering out sales that would have happened regardless.

Understanding Synthetic Control Methods in GeoLifts

A critical element of GeoLifts is the use of synthetic control methods. These sophisticated methods create a “synthetic” control group. This group represents what would have happened in the test market had the campaign not run. Learn more about GeoLift on the GeoLift website.

This contrasts with simpler A/B tests. These simply compare a test market to a similar control market. These control methods can create a solid way to track impact on campaign spend.

Setting up a GeoLift Test: A Step-by-Step Guide

Ready to run your first GeoLift test? Here’s a breakdown of the key steps:

1. Define Your Objectives: What specific marketing outcome are you trying to measure? Is it an incremental lift? A general increase in product awareness? Having specific objectives will assist in the test locations stage.
2. Market Selection: Carefully choose your test and control markets to be as similar as possible. This means things like demographics, past sales data, and other factors.
3. Campaign Execution: Launch your marketing campaign in the test market, while holding back in the control market. Be consistent in campaign execution.
4. Data Collection: Gather data from both markets during and after the campaign, carefully tracking relevant metrics.
5. Analysis and Inference: Analyze the data to determine the incremental lift achieved in the test market.
6. Optimization: Iterate from there. Use your data to better influence your target demographic.

Running effective GeoLifts and managing campaign activities carefully can yield results and data. Just remember that automating workflows and analyzing the results of a test require the aid of technology.

The Power Analysis of GeoLifts and Minimum Detectable Effect

Before launching a GeoLift, it’s crucial to conduct a power analysis. This statistical calculation helps you determine the minimum detectable effect. This answers how big of an impact you need to see to be confident that your results aren’t just due to random chance.

Factors that affect power include the size of your test and control markets, the variability of the data, and the desired statistical significance level. Also, smaller geographical areas may suffer sample bias.

Addressing Common Concerns with GeoLift Testing

No marketing methodology is without its challenges. GeoLift experiments managed to gain the nickname “the golden standard for incrementality measurement,” however this has not always been true.

Here are some common questions and how to address them:

• Spillover Effects: Ads in the test market may reach people in the control market. To control this you can use different security options and data management options for greater reach.
• Location Data Inaccuracy: Users’ location data can be unreliable. Think I’m exaggerating? See if the info you get from this link is different on your phone and PC.
• Cost: GeoLift testing can require resources. You will also need access to location data.
• Seasonality: Remember, not all tests can account for impacts from holidays or weather, since those would throw off all the measurement results of your ad campaign.

GeoLift Case Study

Need some tangible reasons? Let’s peek into how GeoLifts deliver real-world impact. Though a concrete example is missing, one of their blog posts highlights new product features and A/B test results that are key to seeing tangible value from running test ad campaigns.

But beyond marketing, companies can launch product features and start different promotional opportunities. You can see an overview of the product from Eppo here. So, do startup founders and marketing leaders see value in real-world impact through these efforts?

Comparing GeoLifts to Other Measurement Methods

GeoLifts aren’t the only game in town when it comes to measuring marketing effectiveness. However, most of the popular marketing options involve spending big amounts of money with various parties.

Here’s how GeoLifts stack up against some other approaches:

Huntsman Building Solutions and GeoLift Applications

While GeoLifts are traditionally associated with digital marketing, the same principles can be applied in other sectors. Even Huntsman Building Solutions lists several areas for Terms of Use.

Consider how a building solutions company might use GeoLift principles to measure the impact of a new product launch in different regions. It could highlight premium icynene closed-cell solutions, premium icynene open-cell solutions, roofing foams and roofing coatings.

Also, promotional material is part of their building, and so could see a geolift for these items. So for example, the true incremental in sales for certain materials may influence promotional plans going forward.

Tips for optimizing your GeoLift Campaigns for Success

To get the most out of your GeoLift efforts, keep these best practices in mind:

• Prioritize Market Selection Your test and control markets need to be similar in important ways. Don’t compare apples to oranges.
• Ensure Proper Test Length run your test long enough to capture the full impact of your campaign. Be prepared to hold off half your marketing efforts for a period of time.
• Isolate Variables Make sure you only change one thing at a time in your test market, to know for certain. Otherwise, it will skew your install instructions data.
• Be Patient and Measure Collect good data consistently throughout your GeoLift campaign to test power calculators for your promotional material. See quick links like training courses for more info.

You are accumulating changes through this smart model-building activity. Luckily, with each GeoLift, more activities are being added all the time. But these can become measurement models that impact decisions made during campaigns.

Real-Life Applications and Use Cases for GeoLifts

Imagine a national restaurant chain wants to test a new menu item. What should they do? First, test locations are selected and identified in very specific ways to measure outcomes.

With concrete lifting and data points from GeoLift testing in tow, managers decide the results can tell you definitively where sales rose due to that item.

Leveraging GeoLift Results to Drive Business Growth

So, you’ve run your GeoLift test and have results. What’s next? Time to leverage those insights to improve your broader marketing strategy.

Start with looking at your marketing mix and ad spend and analyze data points. For further guidance, Meta ads and Google ads both track changes in logs as well.

The Future of GeoLift and Marketing Experimentation

As marketing continues to evolve, so will the methodologies we use to measure effectiveness. For more detail check Meta and Google. Google Ads are some resources for improving processes to use with future marketing plans.

Status on these marketing efforts are helpful in testing as well. Plus, keep up with news by going to the blogs, such as GitHub’s official blog.

Conclusion

GeoLifts can be powerful tools in your marketing toolkit. They provide unique advantages that are unavailable via more popular measurement methods. You can start implementing GeoLifts on your ad campaigns to boost incremental sales and measure the effectiveness of various types of ad campaigns, just make sure it aligns with your brand and values.