How to understand your report - Dashboard

Corina Alonso Updated by Corina Alonso

The Dashboard section shows the overall results for your campaign in the determined timeframe. The metrics refer to e.g. Reach in the target group (% and people), Events in the target group, Hitrate, and Frequency.

If you hover the mouse over the reporting boxes, a “?” will appear and you will see the description of the metrics. You can also read an explanation of each metric and how they are measured here.

Take the example in the screenshot below: You are running a campaign and generating 61.6M Impressions for your ads in your target group. Of all the people exposed to your ads, 76.3% are in your target group. Additionally, your ads were shown 6.6 times on average (Frequency).

Your Hitrate shows that you are hitting the target group 1.50 times better, compared to the target group's occurrence in the online population. If the hitrate is below 1.00, your campaign is hitting the target group worse than if it was targeted randomly.

In this example, 9.3m people were also reached in the target group. Additionally, 30.2% of the people in your target group were exposed to your ads

If you activate the Cost Reporting feature in the Report Setup page and insert the Estimated spend and Estimated impressions you will see 4 additional metrics in the dashboard: Investment, Cost per 1000 Events in Target Group (TG), Cost per 1000 Reached in TG, Cost per Incremental 1000 Reached in TG. All of them represent the spending at the current point in time. You can read more about Cost Reporting features here

Also, you can see 2 graphs in the Dashboard:

  • Reach in TG overlap (%) - on the Venn diagram, we show the 3 biggest channels (referring to Reach) and their overlap - the overlap between every 2 channels and the overall overlap between the 3 channels
  • Total and Incremental reach in TG (%)

If you activate the Cost Reporting feature, you'll 2 additional graphs:

  • Cost per incremental 1000 reached in TG
  • Investment breakdown

At the bottom of the Dashboard tab, you can find the Overall performance by channel table. Here you can see the overall performance of specific channels, reporting items, and subitems. You can expand the channel item to see the individual reporting items. Each line corresponds to a different reporting item, showing the different KPIs, e.g. ‘Reach in target group’, ’Events in target group’, ‘Incremental reach in the target group, and others. Learn more about these reporting items here. Also, in the list of channels you can see the Overlap which shows the reach overlap between the channels.

FAQ

Why can I only add 3 channels to my Venn diagram?

It’s impossible to draw a Venn diagram with circles that will represent all the possible intersections of 4 (or more) channels. However, it’s possible to draw Venn diagrams with more than 3 media channels by using ellipses or rectangles, but these Venn diagrams lose their simplicity and can become complicated and difficult to understand. To maintain simplicity, we’ve decided to support 3 media channels only.

How are incremental reach and overlaps calculated?

To estimate incremental reach and overlaps, we apply the inclusion-exclusion principle, a fundamental technique in combinatorics, that offers a way to calculate the total number of elements in the union of multiple sets. This principle is useful when applied to audience measurement, where “sets” can be thought of as people reached on individual media channels (e.g., Meta, YouTube, Open Web etc.).

  • Single Media Channels as Sets

To apply the inclusion-exclusion principle, we consider each media channel as a set, where the elements are the reached audiences. The size of the set represents the total reached audiences for that channel.

  • Total Reach on Media Channels and Campaign-level

Using our measurement methodology, we can estimate the total reach on each media channel as well as the campaign.

  • Calculating Incremental Reach

Using the concept of "complementary reach", we can calculate the incremental reach of each channel. The complementary reach is the total reach of each media channel except the one we want to measure. Incremental reach for each channel is then given by the total reach (all channels) minus the complementary reach (i.e. all other channels).

  • Calculating Overlap

Knowing the total reach on each media channel as well as the campaign, we can accurately calculate and account for individuals who get exposed across multiple channels. By applying the inclusion-exclusion principle, we calculate all individual parts of the Venn diagram.

Illustrative Example

Imagine a campaign with two media channels: Meta and YouTube. Each has its own reach, but there are individuals who have been exposed on both channels (i.e., the overlap).

By applying the inclusion-exclusion principle, we can determine the incremental reach and the overlap between the two channels.

Overlap(Meta, YouTube) = Reach(YouTube) + Reach(Meta) - Total Reach(Meta, YouTube)

Incremental reach(Meta) =Total Reach(Meta, Youtube) - Reach(YouTube)

By entering the numbers into the equations, the following results are derived: 

Overlap(Meta, YouTube) = 13% + 32% - 40% = 5%

Incremental reach(Meta)= 40% - 13% = 27% 

What’s the difference between incremental reach and contributed reach?

Incremental reach refers to the additional audiences (i.e., unique reach) that a specific media channel or campaign element brings to the overall campaign that would not have been reached by other channels. For example, if a campaign is running on both YouTube and Meta, the incremental reach of YouTube would be the portion of the audience that YouTube reaches but Meta does not.

Contributed reach, on the other hand, is the portion of the total campaign reach that can be attributed to a specific channel, considering the audiences it brings. It measures the effectiveness of a channel in contributing to the overall reach of a campaign, regardless of overlaps with other channels. For example, if a campaign uses YouTube and Meta, the contributed reach of Meta would be the percentage points of the total campaign reach that is attributed solely to Meta. The sum of contributed reach of each channel will be equal to the total campaign reach.

Why is incremental reach only available for media channels and not individual items or ad sets?

Calculating incremental reach at the level of individual items or ad sets presents a challenge due to the granularity and complexity of the data required, and is currently not supported.

Why is the Venn diagram clustering all Open Web channels?

This is caused due to the way we organize Open Web channels. If you have a keen interest in CTV, we recommend a workaround. By rerunning reports with a specific focus - excluding other Open Web channels - you can isolate the performance of CTV or any other particular interest area. This approach allows Open Web data in the report to represent the channel of interest (e.g., CTV), facilitating a more focused comparison against other media channels like Meta, YouTube, Amazon, etc. While this method doesn't provide the item-level incremental reach data within a media channel, it offers a strategic view of how each main channel, or a specific segment of a channel, contributes to reaching new audiences.

If you have questions in relation to understanding your reports, feel free to reach out to us at support@audiencereport.com.

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