A 100+ Year Old “Ad Tracking” System

“Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become, under able direction, one of the safest of business ventures”

Interesting quote, right?

By the way, this quote was written “pre-internet” before all of the fancy online tracking systems and ad platforms that we have today came about.

And by “pre-internet” I mean 100+ years ago.

But the interesting thing is, they still used “tracking systems” to measure the performance of their ads.

Just without any software.

And completely “offline”.

They knew, down to the penny, how one campaign (or one ad) performed against another.

All without the internet.

Those “tracking systems” were actually people who would tally up (with paper and pen) how many responses, orders, etc a campaign brought in.

They called this “keyed advertising” or “traced returns”.

And usually, the “responses” that came from one of those campaigns came way by the use of a coupon. (although there were other ways of measuring responses)

Sort of the offline equivalent of an “opt in” page that we use today.

Prospect sees an ad in their local newspaper promoting a free book. (as an example)

The call to action (“opt in”) was to fill out the coupon with their name, phone number, address, etc - and mail it in.

The business that promoted that offer then:

1.) Receives the coupon

2.) Has someone look at the “key” (which was usually some sort of specific unique code or identifier on that coupon - so they can determine which campaign/ad the response came from)

3.) Attributed that response to the corresponding campaign (ex: 100 responses came from ad #1, 250 came from ad #2, etc)

4.) After enough time - had enough “data” to determine what the winning campaign/ad was.

Example:

We spent $50,000 on the newspaper ad.

We split tested two different ads.

Ad #1 brought us 1,000 replies and 100 sales.

Our cost per reply for ad #1 was $25.

Our cost per sales for ad #1 was $250

Ad #2 brought us 2,500 replies and 250 sales.

Our cost per reply for ad #1 was $10.

Our cost per sales for ad #1 was $100

The “traced returns” allowed them to know what worked, and what didn’t work.

Simple, but powerful.

And that’s why the author (Claude Hopkins) wrote that quote.

When you have the ability to test, and clearly measure the result, you remove yourself from the “gambling” position in advertising.

Sure, everything still requires some level of “lets see what happens” when you first launch a campaign, but once you get that initial data back, you can iterate on the campaign until you find what does work.

Test, test, test.

Measure, measure, measure.

Test, test, test.

Measure, measure, measure.

Etc.

Constant improvement.

Constant testing.

By the way, that quote was taken from the first chapter of “Scientific Advertising”.

TOTALLY recommend you pick that book up and give it a read, if you haven’t already.

Matter of fact, David Ogilvy was once quoted with saying, “Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising, until he has read this book seven times. It changed the course of my life."

And I think he’s probably right.

Which means, I need to get back to reading this thing a few more times ;)

Anyways, I hope this was helpful!

Until next time!