Driving Efficiency and Effectiveness: PwC Evaluates the Smartly Platform

Confident that Smartly is delivering significant impact for brands and agencies, we decided to ask PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to independently test the accuracy of Smartly reporting of ROAS and CPA as well as the time saving features from using the Smartly platform when compared to the native advertising platform.

Firstly on effectiveness, PwC used underlying data to recalculate Return On Ad Sales (ROAS) and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) in order to validate the accuracy of existing calculations. Secondly on efficiency, PwC assessed the amount of time saved when executing specific tasks compared to alternative platforms and tools.

Recalculation of ROAS and CPA

Ten advertisers were selected at random from the top 50 spending advertisers. The chosen advertisers used a combination of ROAS and CPA based on the following definitions:

ROAS: Revenue (Revenue gained during the advertising campaign)/ Spend (Spend in advertising across the Smartly platform)

CPA: Spend (Spend in advertising across the Smartly platform) / Conversions (Specific goal achieved by an advertiser during the campaign e.g. product sale)

All ten tested samples were recalculated in line with the customer’s reporting requests. The ROAS and CPA calculations for eight out of the ten samples were calculated in accordance with the standard definitions and the remaining two in line with agreed variations with the advertiser.

Out of the sample chosen, advertisers experienced up to 550% ROAS and -49% CPA* 

Time Saving Validation

PwC conducted a walkthrough to understand the main features for setting up, optimizing, and reporting a campaign on Smartly. A moderate campaign setup was defined as three markets and three channels. 

PwC then developed a dummy campaign and drafted instructions for the set up, optimization and reporting of this campaign so that it could be delivered on both Smartly and the native platforms, and ultimately enabled a direct comparison of the time taken to set up campaigns on both.

Using Smartly for campaign set up, optimization, and reporting was 3.3 times faster* when compared to completing the same tasks on the three selected native platforms; put another way 42 mins* saved for every hour.

It is possible that more complex campaigns (additional territories, number of optimizations, volume of creative variations etc) would result in significantly more time savings. Similarly, simpler campaigns may result in less time savings.

*Tested by PwC in June 2024.

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