Something I’ve been thinking about for a while is a framework to quantify how much in-market demand you’ve created from TOF marketing activities like TV, OOH, YouTube etc.
Then understand the timeframe required to capture this demand and model it out to quantify
TOF investment.

Demand Gen vs Demand Capture
I believe there are 2 types of marketing activities, demand generation & demand capture. I define demand gen or TOF as broad targeting to reach potential category buyers who are not currently in-market. Demand capture activities target people who are currently in-market.
The difference is board reach vs behavioural targeting. Broad reach assumes that most potential category buyers are not currently in-market, so the goal is to generate future demand. Google and Meta’s behavioural targeting conversion objectives capture in-market demand.
I also think % of new website visitors can sometimes be misleading to represent TOF activities. If new website visitors from branded search increased from 30% – 80% during a TV spot does this mean branded search is TOF? No, it’s a demand capture channel.
So how do you estimate demand from previous TOF marketing activities, how can this help with forecasting, preparing for future launches & sale periods? I think it takes a multifaceted approach combining surveys with good measurement & tracking infrastructure.
Prompted Brand Surveys
Tracksuit is an always-on prompted brand tracking tool that measures awareness, consideration, preference & usage. They use Dynata to survey hundreds of people in your category each month, with real-time dashboard updates across the funnel as survey results become available.

With Tracksuit you can also filter:
- Demographic & geographic data by funnel stage
- Competitor benchmarking by funnel stage
- Unprompted work cloud associations
- Promoted value proposition
This is not a paid endorsement, I just think it’s the best-in-class brand survey tool.

Definitions
Awareness – What % of all category buyers have heard of your brand.
Consideration – What % of all category buyers are aware & would consider buying your brand.
I think it makes sense to use consideration as a proxy metric or leading indicator of potential future demand.
This is because according to Tracksuit’s data, 92% of categories have on avg. less than 3 brands in their customers’ consideration set, and are 2 – 3 times more likely to be purchased. It does vary depending on the product category while being dynamic given that investment in TOF & market conditions change over time.

In month 1 for the US market Tracksuit benchmarks your funnel stages, surveying 1,000 people in your category. This is important to set up prior to any new TOF marketing activities with significant investment so you can see changes in funnel metrics over time.

Use post-purchase survey data to understand, “How long did you know about us before placing your first purchase?” Look at the rolling avg. time to first purchase while also filtering for any TOF channels like TV etc.
Look for % increases that align with past TOF marketing investments like running a 1 month TV spot where you see a notable change in the reported 1 -3 month range. Look for % increases across TOF channels like TV for the question “How did you first hear about us?”

Evaluate past TOF marketing activities that led to an increase in Tracksuit reported awareness & consideration. Example, you invested in a 1 month TV spot and Tracksuit data shows an awareness lift from 10% – 12% and a consideration lift from 4% – 5%. You can then begin to quantify how much TOF marketing spend is required to move the needle on awareness and consideration.
Example $100k TV spend over 1 month resulted in an awareness lift from 10% – 12% and a consideration lift from 4% – 5%. Then using historical consideration & actual sales data, estimate the % of customers acquired in a given period. Model this forward to estimate the TOF investment required, consideration lag and acquisition efficiency with any assumptions on improved acquisition rate.
You can also further validate the approach by running geo holdout tests to see if the TOF activities are driving incremental sales. Then recalibrate your MMM with priors to help with future budget allocation decisions.
I hope this framework has given you something to think about when considering how to measure the success of TOF investments.