Cutting Through the Noise
Proving social's true value during the noisiest time of year
+44%
YoY incremental organic visits directly attributable to social exposure
+38K
incremental paid generic traffic visits
+10%
YoY sales increase
About Company
Which? is the UK's consumer champion, providing independent and impartial expert reviews, research and advice across a range of topics, holding businesses to account and influencing politicians and lawmakers.
Company size
Mid-Market
Industry
Media & Publishing
Brainlabs featured services
Paid Social
Data Strategy
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Speak to a BrainlabberThe challenge
Which? needed to prove that social advertising was driving real business value, not just impressions.
The timing made it harder. Launching during November's peak shopping period meant competing in one of the noisiest advertising environments of the year, with 70% of consumers actively researching purchases before converting. Their existing attribution setup, GA4's data-driven model, leaned heavily on last-click data and was missing the influence of upper-funnel social activity on organic search behaviour and eventual conversions.
Key friction points:
- A last-click biased attribution model failing to capture upper-funnel social influence
- Peak season advertising saturation making it difficult to isolate social's contribution
- No clear line between social spend and revenue, a problem affecting the majority of social advertisers
- 52% of UK households under financial pressure, raising the stakes on proving informed decision-making value
Our approach
1. Building a measurement framework that could see the full journey
Rather than rely on a single methodology, we deployed Brand Lift Studies, Search Lift Studies and Marketing Mix Modelling simultaneously. The combination allowed us to cross-validate findings and build a fuller picture of how social advertising was influencing behaviour well before the point of conversion.
2. Validating social's influence through econometric analysis
We partnered with MSQ to run Marketing Mix Modelling across three years of Which? marketing data, isolating social media's contribution from other online and offline channels. This gave us statistical validation of social's impact on business outcomes and a clearer view of how to strengthen the halo effect of our campaigns going forward.
3. Testing creative to understand what drives action
We ran a creative experiment pitting influencer content (Hayley Morris and The Ayodis Family) against standard brand creative across different audience segments. The experiment was designed to measure how content type influenced search behaviour and engagement, giving us signal on what prompts research activity before conversion.
Rather than rely on a single methodology, we deployed Brand Lift Studies, Search Lift Studies and Marketing Mix Modelling simultaneously. The combination allowed us to cross-validate findings and build a fuller picture of how social advertising was influencing behaviour well before the point of conversion.
2. Validating social's influence through econometric analysis
We partnered with MSQ to run Marketing Mix Modelling across three years of Which? marketing data, isolating social media's contribution from other online and offline channels. This gave us statistical validation of social's impact on business outcomes and a clearer view of how to strengthen the halo effect of our campaigns going forward.
3. Testing creative to understand what drives action
We ran a creative experiment pitting influencer content (Hayley Morris and The Ayodis Family) against standard brand creative across different audience segments. The experiment was designed to measure how content type influenced search behaviour and engagement, giving us signal on what prompts research activity before conversion.
The results
Launching during the most competitive advertising period of the year, we proved social's influence on the full customer journey.
Since working with Brainlabs:
Since working with Brainlabs:
- 44% increase in incremental organic visits year on year, directly attributable to social exposure
- 38K incremental paid generic traffic visits, captured through Search Lift measurement
- 10% YoY sales increase, validated through econometric modelling across three years of data
+44%
YoY incremental organic visits directly attributable to social exposure
+38K
incremental paid generic traffic visits
+10%
YoY sales increase
