Click here to view an 11-minute video of the key findings.

Click here to download a PDF of the slides.

Over the last seven years, the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group® has commissioned Advertiser Perceptions annually to survey brands and media agencies on the sales contribution of five advertising effectiveness factors:

• Brand
• Creative
• Reach
• Recency
• Targeting

We compared marketer and media agency perceptions of the five sales drivers with Circana sales effect data.

Key takeaways:

• Creative: Marketers and media agencies massively understate the immense sales effect power of creative.
• Andrew Tindall, System1’s Chief Growth Officer, asserts, “We need to be bold, unapologetically say no to things to get time to make better ads, and partner with the right agencies that bring the talent, tools and knowledge to make work that works.”
• Targeting: Marketers and media agencies overestimate the impact of targeting by 2X.
• Les Binet and Sarah Carter caution, “Don’t target too narrowly. It may be efficient, but it’s rarely effective. Tight targeting means low sales and profits.”

How would you answer?

What percent of sales are driven by…?

• Brand
• Creative
• Reach
• Recency
• Targeting

Answers should add up to 100%.

In February 2026, Advertiser Perceptions surveyed 304 marketers and media agencies on the sales contribution of the five sales drivers.

Circana provides the following definitions of what they call the “Five Keys of Advertising Effectiveness”:

• “CREATIVE quality measures the influence of advertising by looking at the number of purchases it drives. What this means is two factors motivate consumer purchase decisions: the creative message and the context in which it’s delivered. Strong creative delivers higher incremental sales than weak creative does.
• BRAND refers to factors that are not changed overnight. They’re what makes a brand a brand: market share, brand penetration and the tendency to retain loyal buyers relative to the competition.
• TARGETING is the measure of how well a campaign was able to reach a particular audience.
• REACH speaks to scale. It’s how many households were exposed to advertising through the duration of the campaign.
• RECENCY is all about the timing of advertising in relation to when a consumer makes a purchase. High rates of recency mean that more impressions are being served just before store trips.”

Advertising effectiveness science reveals sales contribution

To determine what actually drives advertising effectiveness, we turn to one of largest and most prominent studies ever conducted on sales effect. The Five Keys to Advertising Effectiveness, released in August 2023 by Circana, is based on nearly 450 sales effect studies and over a decade of experience linking advertising to sales results.

The two sales drivers with the most dramatic disconnect between marketer perception and reality are creative and targeting.

Creative: Marketers and media agencies massively underestimate the immense sales effect power of creative

Creative, according to Circana, drives half of sales. This is over 2 times what advertisers perceive.

The Advertiser Perceptions February 2026 study reports brands and media agencies say creative only represents 23% of total sales effect. NCSolutions science reveals creative generates an eye-popping 49% of incremental sales.

Marc Binkley, principle with Quatical, the evidence-based marketing consultancy, says, “Creative is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet…it’s a way to supercharge budgets. Emotional, well-branded creative is a way to be more memorable. The goal isn’t just awareness, it’s being memorable in as many buying situations as possible.”

Over the past seven years, across 848 marketers surveyed, perceptions of creative as a sales driver have remained consistent, hovering at about 20%.

Analytic Partners, the leader in media mix modeling says, “Creative is a key driver of advertising performance/ campaign effectiveness, second only to investment levels.”

System1, a leader in creative testing, has quantified the relationship between creative quality and market share.

Each ad tested is assigned one to five stars based on the degree of positive emotional response. A three-star ad can generate 1% increase in long term market share. A five-star ad can lift market share by 3%.

Andrew Tindall, System1’s Chief Growth Officer, says, “This data doesn’t surprise me, marketers spend far too much time worrying about anything but the one singlehanded thing that could change their business that quarter – creative effectiveness. We need to be bold, unapologetically say no to things to get time to make better ads, and partner with the right agencies that bring the talent, tools and knowledge to make work that works.”

Targeting: Marketers and media agencies vastly overestimate the impact of targeting

Marketers and media agencies consider targeting the number two sales driver at a 22% contribution. What does the marketing science say?

Per Circana, targeting ranks a distant fourth, generating only 11% of sales effect. The sales contribution perception of targeting is twice the reality.

Marketer perceptions of targeting as a sales driver average 25% over the last seven years. In 2026, marketers believe targeting’s effect on sales is 23%, a slight drop from the 7-year average of 25%.

Beware narrow targeting

The best-selling marketing and media strategy book How Not To Plan: 66 Ways to Screw It Up by Les Binet and Sarah Carter cautions, “Don’t target too narrowly. It may be efficient, but it’s rarely effective. Tight targeting means low sales and profits.”

Writing in MediaPost, Elyse Kane, Professor at Baruch College and former Vice President, Insights and Analytics at Colgate Palmolive, notes there are three “watch-outs” with targeting:

1. “Many companies mis-define their targets
2. Many companies define their targets too narrowly
3. People aren’t static, they move in and out of targets”

Sales drivers: Perception versus reality

Here are the rankings of sales drivers from the Advertiser Perceptions study (to the left) and the ranking of actual sales drivers (to the right) from Circana’s Five Keys of Advertising Effectiveness study.

Focusing on the 122 marketers surveyed in February 2026 by Advertiser Perceptions, marketers underestimate creative (21% versus the 49% reality) as a sales driver.

Brands overestimate the sales effect of targeting, reach, and recency. Brand is the only sales driver correctly perceived at 21%.

Marketers versus media agencies: Both groups are mostly aligned on their perception of sales drivers

For the most part, marketers and media agencies have similar perceptions on the sales effect contribution. Both groups overestimate the importance of targeting.

It is interesting to note that among media agencies, creative edges out targeting as a sales driver. It appears media agencies recognize the importance of creative as a sales driver to a greater degree than their marketer clients.

Marketer/media agency perception versus Circana reality

Here are the rankings of sales drivers from the Advertiser Perceptions study of marketers/media agencies combined (to the left) and the ranking of actual sales drivers (to the right) from Circana’s Five Keys of Advertising Effectiveness study.

Key takeaways:

• Creative: Marketers and media agencies massively understate the immense sales effect power of creative.
• Andrew Tindall, System1’s Chief Growth Officer, asserts, “We need to be bold, unapologetically say no to things to get time to make better ads, and partner with the right agencies that bring the talent, tools and knowledge to make work that works.”
• Targeting: Marketers and media agencies overestimate the impact of targeting by 2X.
• Les Binet and Sarah Carter caution, “Don’t target too narrowly. It may be efficient, but it’s rarely effective. Tight targeting means low sales and profits.”

Recommendations:

• Creative quality should be the top priority. To learn about creative quality strategies, click here for the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group®’s audio creative best practices.
• If possible, pre-test creative.
• Fixing audio creative is inexpensive. You don’t have to fly the crew back to Cancun to reshoot.
• Don’t overstate the value of targeting – it is a small lever.

Click here to view an 11-minute video of the key findings.

Pierre Bouvard is Chief Insights Officer of the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group^®.

Contact the Insights team at CorpMarketing@westwoodone.com.