Advanced Certificate in Effectiveness

Every campaign needs an effectiveness strategy, and every agency needs its experts

Learn about objective setting, discover how to design a multi-platform campaign measurement programme, gain knowledge of theories of advertising effectiveness and earn the confidence to write an effectiveness paper to showcase your success

Authored and contributed to by leading practitioners and edited by Richard Shotton, the qualification will allow you to develop a greater understanding and a more forensic, critical thinking approach to the evaluation of your campaigns.

Who is this qualification for?

Anyone involved in the evaluation and development of effective creative work, whatever the discipline, in either agency or client businesses. In particular, mid-level planners with at least four years’ experience. More junior practitioners should embark on the Effectiveness Essentials Certificate.

What are the benefits?

Prove the value of your contribution to your client’s business.
Improve your client relationships by speaking their language.
Design a measurement program to evaluate multi-platform activity, from sponsorship, digital, and promotional to CRM and DM activity.
Confidently and correctly analyze the impact and effect of any campaign.
Write a brilliant effectiveness paper.

How is the qualification delivered and assessed?

35 hours of online learning are accessible through the IPA website on any device or via the IPA Learning app.
You should allow for 2-3 months of study before sitting the exam.
Formal 2-hour online exam.
If you pass the exam, you will be awarded a digital certificate of completion and 3 MIPA stars for personal accreditation

The 2022 Intake Dates

The 2022 intake commences on 30 May 2022.

Module 1

Introduction to Effectiveness Testing

An introduction to the core principles of effectiveness testing. This module summarises the recent work of Les Binet, Peter Field and Byron Sharp.

Module 1

Module 2

Planning for Effectiveness

This module provides an overview of the six key steps in best practice evaluation. It categorises the different types of objectives and how they should be set in a SMART fashion.

Module 2

Module 3

Input measures

This module defines the two key types of measures (inputs and outputs). It explains what the most useful input measures are and how they can be calculated.

Module 3

Module 4

Output Measures: Business

An overview of the core business measures for marketing effectiveness, with particular attention being paid to pricing.

Module 4

Module 5

Output Measures: Behavioural

This module defines behavioural measures. It explains the most common types of behavioural measure, how they can be calculated and their strengths and weaknesses.

Module 5

Module 6

Output Measures: Awareness and attitudes

This module defines the main types of awareness and attitudinal metrics.

Module 6

Module 7

Isolating your activity: Non-econometric

A look at the best practice techniques for evaluating effectiveness outside of econometrics. These techniques are important to understand and use even if a campaign is also using econometrics.

Module 7

Module 8

Isolating your activity: Introduction to Econometrics

This module explains not just what econometrics does but also how it works. It looks at the many strengths of econometrics but also the limitations.

Module 8

Module 9

Payback and ROMI

This module looks at two key methods for working out a campaign effect and a business “bottom line”. It explains what Payback and ROMI mean and how they can be calculated.

Module 9

Module 10

Evaluating DM

This module focuses on the particular challenges of measuring mail campaigns. It looks at the evolving nature of best practice in this field and the role of JICMail in evaluating campaigns.

Module 10

Module

Evaluating Digital

An in-depth look at the key concepts for measuring the effectiveness of digital advertising. This section covers measuring both the brand and performance aspects of digital.

Module

Module 12

Evaluating PR, Experiential and Sponsorship

An in-depth analysis of the best practice approaches for measuring PR and Sponsorships. The RAE (Research, Assessment, Evaluation) model is discussed for Sponsorship, as well as the AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework for PR campaigns.

Module 12

Module 13

Public Sector Campaigns

This module looks at the unique challenges of public sector campaigns. It covers the government’s comms planning approach (OASIS) and the Evaluation Framework 2.0

Module 13

Module 14

How to Win an Effectiveness Award

An overview of why effectiveness awards are important, what’s expected and how to write a successful entry.

Module 14

Become qualified in evaluating and measuring advertising and marketing effectiveness

Pricing

Member Price

S$1,053

Member discount

Non-Member Price

S$1,230

Testimonials

Ayla De Moraes

VCCP

"It is something you will end up using in one way or another in your day-to-day work and helps ensure you feel much more confident when discussing measurement and evaluation in front of clients and internally. It gives you the rationale as to why specific ways of measurement are right, which helps you to really understand the background and feel confident in your decisions. However, it's not something to be taken lightly, as it does require a good deal of online learning and revision, and you should probably think about starting your revision about three months before the actual exam date.

To date, it is the most relevant and useful exam I have ever undertaken, and although it was challenging, it was well worth the hard work. I use the knowledge I acquired on a daily basis and would recommend it to anyone who is interesting in understanding more about measurement and evaluation of campaigns."

Catherine Sheen

MGA

"Evaluating the effectiveness of business-to-business campaigns requires an intelligent strategy, says MGA's Katherine Sheen. I recently took the IPA's Eff Test – a qualification designed to help agency planners learn best-practice techniques to measure campaign effectiveness. The curriculum was fascinating. Agency folk learn from day one that we should show positive results for our efforts – nobody is doing this just for the good of their health.

However, the IPA Eff Test rationalized and contextualized the theory of effectiveness practice into a series of road-to-Damascus moments of enlightenment for me. There is an incontestable core logic behind the need to improve standards of measurement: measuring effectiveness effectively helps clients to put a value on the impact of marketing activity. Our clients are constantly challenged within their organizations to justify their annual budgets. Those discussions become far easier with data indicating a solid positive correlation between marketing activity and company performance."

Lucas Brown

Joint MD - Total Media Limited

"The course has been designed to provide grounding in measurement, so people can begin to understand how to measure effectiveness across a range of hard and soft measures and different marketing channels. The course covers the planning phase, establishing the client objectives, developing the effectiveness plan, and selecting relevant and persuasive measures. It also covers the campaign implementation phase and how to capture the effectiveness data before exploring the post-campaign phase, understand all the contributing factors, explain econometrics, and calculate ROMI. Upon completion of the course, the students should be able to proactively contribute to evaluation debates with more experienced colleagues, partner agencies, and their clients.

When I was invited to get involved in this project, I jumped at the chance because I could immediately see the benefits of such a course; I only wish it was around when I was two or three years into the business. My hopes and ambitions would be that we create curiosity amongst the students and a desire to get closer to their client's data to draw positive conclusions."

Ultimately we must not forget that most clients are in the business of "cash generation," The more we can financially prove that the advertising is the lifeblood of their business growth, the stronger our relationships will be. The more confidence we will have in our solutions.