The jury were hugely impressed by the scaleable and strong partnerships created by National World across a number of industries – this project has the potential to disrupt and make a big difference for SMEs.

According to IAB, 60% of SMEs use paid digital advertising. But when it comes to measuring the effect, clicks have become the default metric, despite their shortcomings. National World has disrupted this situation, using Brand Metrics’ advanced brand lift technology to offer effectiveness measurements to even the smallest campaigns. Now SMEs, spending over £250 with National World, can understand their campaign’s impact on brand awareness, consideration, preference and action intent.

Access to this data is unprecedented and is helping far more SMEs move away from reliance on clicks, towards a clear understanding of the impact of advertising on their brands.

Digital advertising is vital for SMEs, but budgets are tight and accountability is key. Advertising must have a proven effect. But how is that measured? Advertising works in different ways, but often the click is the default means of measurement. If no-one clicks, it hasn’t worked. But what if advertising aims to build awareness, consideration, preference or action intent for future purchases? All are valid objectives, but none result in a click. In the absence of brand lift metrics, too often SMEs use CTR as a default metric, whilst simultaneously having misgivings about its relevance. Better some data than nothing!

National World has revolutionised the SME marketplace, making brand lift data available to advertisers spending just £250! No more relying on irrelevant click data as their default measurement. No more feeling like the poor cousin. Facebook only measures campaigns over £20k – an unrealistic ad spend for cash-strapped SMEs.

National World has democratised the industry, making brand lift data available to small SMEs, helping them answer the age-old question “did my campaign work?”. This was a 4-year process, conducted in close partnership with Brand Metrics, a Swedishbased technology company, who offer unlimited brand lift measurements via a marketleading SaaS platform.

Getting here has involved four development stages:

1. Integration: Adding Brand Metrics’ script to National World’s 70 newsbrand sites and testing the automatic survey retargeting technique, to determine the minimum campaign size that can consistently be measured.
2. Education: helping the sales teams interpret the brand lift results and use the data proactively, to demonstrate campaign effect and help sell in future campaigns.
3. Automation: Using Brand Metrics’ API feed to import brand lift data directly into reporting dashboards, enabling easy access for sales teams. Also, using the API to automate campaign bookings, to enable greater scaling.
4. Extension: National World has just launched Ad Manager – a self-serve platform where advertisers book their own campaigns and enable brand lift data to be part of the service.

This is the first of its type in the world. Brand Metrics’ brand lift data has become central to National World’s commercial strategy.

National World’s integration of Brand Metrics’ brand lift data has been a game changer for SMEs.

The data is also an integral part of National World’s commercial strategy and a key differentiator against the large platforms. Consider the following:

• National World now offers brand lift measurements on all campaigns over 50k impressions.
• Nearly 10,000 campaigns have been measured over the last three years.
• These campaigns have run across 64 different industry categories.
• Last year, 93 sales people were trained in using Brand Metrics data and it was presented during the National Sales Conference.

And success leads to success. National World’s average brand lift performance has increased by 47% since first launched in late 2019. Furthermore, brand lift performance is predicted to increase by a further 7% in 2023.

And National World’s self-serve platform, launched in January 2023 as an industry first, is already attracting a strong pipeline of new advertisers.

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