Brand Lift

Will the ad work?
Find out before the media spend.

Brand lift testing puts the finished creative against a real control group. You get back a straight answer: deploy it, fix it, or don't run it.

$2,790 24 hours

Usually ordered when: the creative is finished, the media plan is costed, and someone has to sign off before the budget is committed. A brand lift study answers it in days, not after the campaign has run.

Brand lift on one screen.

Half your sample sees the creative. Half doesn't. Every figure on the dashboard is the gap between the two groups - the lift, in percentage points. It's the only number that tells you what the ad itself did, rather than what people already thought.

Ready to deploy Refine before launch Don't run it
Brand Lift dashboard showing causal lift metrics against control group

Four headline numbers, each showing exposed against control. If the two groups look the same, the ad didn't do anything - and the dashboard says so rather than finding something else to celebrate.

What's on it

Three reads, and the reasoning behind them.

Enough to defend the go or no-go in a meeting without opening anything else — and if someone wants to dig, the full brand lift report is underneath.

Creative reaction.

  • Impression, engagement & relevance
  • Exposed group metrics isolated
  • First read if lift is flat

Causal impact.

  • Aided & unaided awareness lift
  • Attribute shifts vs control
  • Consideration & purchase intent

The decision & synthesis.

  • Go/no-go banner: Deploy, Refine, or Don't Run
  • Analyst read connecting funnel movements
  • Caution flags & sample skew warnings

01 - The creative

Exposed group reaction.

Creative impression, engagement and relevance, scored by the group that actually saw the ad. Did it land as a piece of work, before we ask what it moved. Exposed group only, and labelled as such. These aren't lift figures and the dashboard doesn't pretend they are. The first place to look when lift is flat - an ad can be liked and still shift nothing, and that's a different problem from an ad nobody engaged with.

Creative impression and engagement

02 - The lift

Exposed vs control.

Awareness, unaided and aided, each with exposed against control and the brand lift stated in percentage points. Brand fit and attribute lift - which specific associations moved, in a table, so you can see the ad landed "innovative" but did nothing for "tasty". Consideration and purchase intent, the two figures anyone above you will ask about first. Every metric shows both groups. You always see what the control group said, not just the gap.

Attribute lift comparison table

03 - The verdict & reasoning

The call and analyst notes.

A go/no-go call, stated on its own banner: Ready to deploy, refine before launch, or don't run it. Analyst notes - a written read of what the numbers mean together, by a person. Where the funnel moved, where it stalled, and what the creative is and isn't doing. Including the caution flags. If a result looks unusually large, or the sample skews in a way that makes a breakout directional rather than reliable, the notes say so.

Analyst verdict and caution flags

Full Report Underneath

And the full report, if the answer raises another question.

Behind the dashboard sits the complete report, plus a demographic filter across the whole dashboard, so you can re-run every figure for the audience you're actually buying media against.

See what's in a full report →
How it works

Brand lift testing in three steps.

You upload the ad. We build the split, run both groups, and measure the difference. No media budget at risk while you find out.

In just a few minutes.

  • Upload the creative - video or image, file or link
  • Name your brand and up to five attributes you want the ad to shift. Leave them blank and we build them from your category
  • Add competitors, or let us build the set for you
  • You set it up yourself, in your own workspace - audience, criteria, add-ons - with the price updating as you go. No quote to wait for, no procurement step.
Setting up a Brand Lift study

Why the brand lift verdict holds up.

Most pre-launch creative testing asks people whether they liked the ad. Brand lift measures what the ad changed. Those are different questions, and only one of them predicts anything.

Who answers

  • 170M+ verified consumers across 130+ markets, from Kantar Profiles, Cint and Dynata
  • Never synthetic. Every response comes from a verified human, not a model
  • 300 respondents minimum, never fewer - a split design needs both halves to hold up
  • Randomly assigned to exposed or control, so the two groups differ only in whether they saw the ad

How the split works

  • Both halves answer the same questions. The only variable is exposure to your creative
  • Group balance is confirmed and reported. If the two halves skew on age, gender or income, the notes say so
  • Geolocation, speed detection and consistency screening before anything reaches analysis
  • You get the sample you ordered. Order 300, receive 300 clean responses - removals are on us

How the verdict is reached

  • Lift, not opinion. Every figure is exposed minus control, with the sign shown
  • The same thresholds every time. Every brand lift study runs the same design — the verdict is where the numbers landed, not a judgement about your creative
  • An analyst review before delivery, including flags on anything that looks too good
  • Base sizes on both sides of every cut, so you can see what a segment finding rests on
Two ways to run it

Run it yourself, or have us run it.

Same design. Same control group. Same 24 hours.

Run it yourself

Upload the creative, name the attributes you want it to shift, set your audience. The price updates as you go, and you pay online.

Have us run it

Send us the creative and tell us what it's meant to do. We build the attribute set, run the split, and deliver the verdict — with an analyst to explain what moved, what didn't, and whether the media plan should change.

You're a good fit if

You're about to commit $10k+ in media behind this creative
The creative is finished, or close enough to be judged as final
Someone has to approve the spend and wants more than an internal opinion
You need to know which audience to concentrate the budget on
Pulling or reshooting after launch would be expensive
You want to know what the ad moves, not whether people enjoyed it
You'll act on the verdict, including if the verdict is "don't run it"

You're not a good fit if

The creative is still a rough concept → See Before You Spend
The campaign is already live → See Did It Work?
You want to compare several executions against each other rather than one against a control → See Before You Spend
Your total media budget is small enough that the test outweighs the spend
Your audience has an incidence rate under 30% - talk to us, it needs a custom quote
You need deep emotional exploration — that's qualitative work, and it needs a moderator

Brand lift questions, answered.

Brand Lift report preview
What is a brand lift study?

A brand lift study splits a sample in two at random. Half sees your creative, half doesn't, and both answer the same brand questions. Every figure is the gap between the groups, stated in percentage points — awareness, brand attributes, consideration and purchase intent. It isolates what the ad itself did, rather than what people already thought. 300 respondents minimum, 24 hours, $2,790.

How much does brand lift testing cost?

$2,790 per study, covering 300 respondents split 150 exposed and 150 control, in any of 130+ markets. Analyst review and exports included. Audiences with an incidence rate under 30% need a custom quote.

What exactly is "lift"?

The gap between the group that saw your ad and the group that didn't, on the same question. If 34% of the exposed group say they'd consider buying and 26% of the control group do, that's +8 percentage points. It isolates what the creative did, rather than what people already thought.

Why do I need a control group?

Because asking people what they thought of an ad tells you very little. They'll rate it highly and remain exactly as unlikely to buy. The control group is what turns an opinion into a measurement.

What decides the verdict?

Where the lift figures land against thresholds set in advance, the same for every Brand Lift study. An analyst reviews it before delivery, but the framework decides it - it isn't adjusted to match what you were hoping for.

What if the lift is flat?

Then the report says so, and the creative reactions section usually explains why - an ad people engaged with but that moved nothing is a different problem from one nobody noticed. Either way you've spent $2,790 rather than the media budget.

Why does the report flag its own results?

Because unusually large numbers deserve a second look, and a sample that skews on one demographic makes segment breakouts directional rather than reliable. We'd rather tell you that than let you present something that won't survive a question.

How many respondents, and can I use fewer?

300 minimum - 150 exposed, 150 control. It doesn't scale down. Each half has to stand on its own for the comparison to mean anything.

Can I test more than one creative?

Not in a single Brand Lift study - the design compares one execution against a control, not executions against each other. If you're choosing between versions, Before You Spend is built for that.

Can you run the study for us?

Yes. Send us the creative and tell us what it's meant to shift — we build the attribute set, run the split and deliver the verdict, with an analyst to walk you through it. Same design, same 24 hours.

Can I test outside the US?

Yes, across 130+ markets. Incidence rates below 30% need a custom quote rather than the standard price.

Campaign already live? See Did It Work? →

Find out before the media spend.

Upload the creative, set your audience. Brand lift testing runs from $2,790, and the verdict is back in 24 hours.