How Telia increased reach efficiency by 20% with redistributed ad budget

Linear TV viewing is declining, especially among younger audiences, challenging advertisers’ ability to reach specific segments of their target audiences. At the same time, the cost of linear TV advertising is rising, challenging advertisers’ ability to cost-effectively reach their target audiences.

Faced with these challenges, Telia wanted to explore if redistributing its ad budget across TV and online video could help the telco reach its target audience (25-64-year-olds) more efficiently. To do this, Telia ran two cross-media campaigns with different media allocations across TV (linear TV and addressable TV) and online video (YouTube) and partnered with AudienceProject to measure the impact of moving a share of its ad budget from TV to online video.

Telia first ran a campaign with 88% of the ad budget allocated to TV and just 12% allocated to YouTube, followed soon after by a second campaign with 71% of the ad budget allocated to TV and 29% allocated to YouTube. At the same time, the telco decreased the total ad budget by 10% from the first to the second campaign.

Despite this decreased total ad budget, the measurement showed that the 80% total reach of the second campaign was actually 5 points higher than the first campaign. In other words, Telia reached more people in the target audience for less money.

By comparing the cost per reach point (the cost of reaching one percent of the target audience) for the two campaigns, the measurement specifically documented that the reach efficiency increased by 20% in the second campaign.

In addition, the measurement showed that the Telia campaign not only reached more people in the target audience but also a more even distribution of the target audience. While the first campaign reached between 64% and 86% across age groups, the second campaign reached between 72% and 88% across age groups.

Finally, although Telia allocated significantly more ad budget to online video in the second campaign, the measurement showed that the online part of the campaign remained more cost-effective than the TV part, indicating a potential to allocate even more budget to online video. In short, the results show that TV needs 338 TRPs to create the same incremental reach as YouTube created with 180 TRPs – 158 additional TRPs. Put differently; even if YouTube had been 88% more expensive than TV, it would still be as cost-effective as TV.

On the results of the measurement, Eva Lundgren, Director of Brand & Marketing at Telia, says: “The measurement by AudienceProject has provided us with valuable insights into how we can reach our target audience more efficiently across TV and online video, helping us optimise future cross-media campaign activities.”

Bianca Bruhn, Country Director at Google, adds: “We are delighted to see how AudienceProject’s analysis establishes TV and YouTube as complementing media platforms and specifically how an increased ad budget for YouTube can help Telia increase both the reach and reach efficiency of their advertising.”