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What the latest marketing effectiveness studies say

Effectiveness has an advantage opinions do not: it can be measured. We went through the current wave of research, from Thinkbox through WARC, System1 and Analytic Partners to the LinkedIn B2B Institute, and picked six findings worth knowing before you sign the next media plan.

Daniel Votruba · 6 July 2026 · 3 min read

1. Most advertising profit appears when you are no longer watching

Profit Ability 2 (Thinkbox with Ebiquity, EssenceMediacom, Gain Theory, Mindshare and Wavemaker, 2024) is an econometric meta-analysis of 141 UK brands and 1.8 billion pounds of media investment. The key number: short-term return on advertising averages 1.87 pounds per pound invested, and 4.11 pounds with sustained effects. Close to 60% of advertising profit therefore arrives after the first quarter, in exactly the period ordinary attribution cannot see. The study also notes that every media type examined paid off in the dataset; they differed only in the speed and durability of the return.

2. Brand and performance multiply, they do not add up

The report The Multiplier Effect (a coalition of WARC, System1, Analytic Partners, Prophet and BERA.ai, 2024/25) quantified what happens when a company leaves a purely performance mode: brands that moved to a combination of brand and performance showed a median increase in return on sales of around 90%. And among the winning companies in the dataset, the brand and performance arms were at least partly integrated in nine cases out of ten, organisationally as well as in measurement.

3. Good creative pays no tax for going long

The favourite excuse is that brand creative sacrifices sales now for sales later. System1 data in the same report says the opposite: 92% of ads that strongly build long-term equity also performed above average in the short term. The authors' recommended recipe is fewer, bigger, longer: fewer but larger and longer-lived creative platforms, built on consistency, distinctiveness, emotion and a dash of showmanship.

4. We switch ads off before they have bedded in

Analytic Partners' ROI Genome database indicates that roughly nine ads in ten never get the time to wear in, meaning we switch them off before they reach full effect. Creative wear-out is far rarer in practice than marketers assume; it is usually the team that is worn out, not the audience. Indeed a System1 and Effie Worldwide survey in the same report finds 41% of marketers perceive creativity as a risk. The data suggests the risk is its absence.

5. 95% of the market is not buying right now, so plan accordingly

The 95:5 rule (John Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for the LinkedIn B2B Institute) reminds us that at any moment only a sliver of the market is actively buying, typically around five percent in B2B. Advertising therefore does most of its work as a subscription to future demand: it builds memory structures in people who will buy a year from now. Optimise only for that five percent in-market and you are competing on the most expensive and most crowded patch of the pitch.

6. The biggest brake is not data, it is the organisation

Following The Multiplier Effect, WARC described eight blockers preventing CMOs from joining brand and performance: from separate budgets and teams through distrust of measurement (admitted by over half of the marketers surveyed) to incentives tied to quarterly numbers. The synthesis is simple: the science of effectiveness is more consistent than ever, and the bottleneck is the willingness to act on it.

Want these findings translated into your own budget and measurement? This is precisely our territory, or write to us directly.

Key takeaways (TL;DR)

  • Profit Ability 2: short-term return on advertising is 1.87 pounds, and 4.11 with sustained effects. Close to 60% of the profit appears after the first quarter, beyond ordinary attribution.
  • The Multiplier Effect: brands that moved from purely performance to a brand plus performance combination showed a median increase in return on sales of around 90%.
  • Good creative pays no long-term tax (92% of strongly brand-building ads also perform above average short term). And nine ads in ten get switched off before they bed in.
  • 95% of the market is not buying right now; advertising is a subscription to future demand. Today's bottleneck is not the science but the organisation: separate budgets, teams and quarterly incentives.

FAQ

Which effectiveness study is most cited right now?

Two: Profit Ability 2 (Thinkbox with Ebiquity, EssenceMediacom, Gain Theory, Mindshare and Wavemaker, 2024), a meta-analysis of 141 brands finding close to 60% of advertising profit sits in sustained effects, and The Multiplier Effect (WARC, System1, Analytic Partners and others, 2024/25) on brand and performance synergy.

Is it worth moving part of the performance budget into brand?

According to The Multiplier Effect, brands that moved from a purely performance approach to a combination recorded a median increase in return on sales of around 90%. It is not either/or: the two modes multiply when integrated and measured over a longer window.

What does the research mean for small budgets?

Do not switch campaigns off prematurely (most ads never even bed in), back fewer but larger and longer creative platforms, and measure the slow metrics too: share of search, branded search, price sensitivity, not just last-click ROAS.

Sources: Thinkbox, Ebiquity, EssenceMediacom, Gain Theory, Mindshare & Wavemaker, Profit Ability 2: The New Business Case for Advertising (2024) · WARC, System1, Analytic Partners, Prophet & BERA.ai, The Multiplier Effect (2024/25) · Analytic Partners, ROI Genome · John Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute / LinkedIn B2B Institute, The 95-5 Rule.