Understanding, Measuring & Changing Behaviors with Google

Background:  People spend 48% of their media time with digital, which is 14pp higher than time spent with television. Given the consistent annual growth we see in time spent with digital, it is important to examine this medium’s role in affecting behavior change. Google’s Government team developed intent-based audience segments using academic literature on behavior change that addresses 1) people’s readiness to make a behavior change, 2) how to most effectively reach those people with digital campaigns, and 3) how to measure the efficacy of that media in contributing to a behavior change.

Program background:  Given that not every public health campaign receives large federal funding, digital can be a cost-effective, targeted way to reach niche audiences. In the past five years, Google’s Government team has partnered with federal clients on over 50 public health campaigns spanning anti-smoking, HIV prevention, and vaccination. They have developed cutting edge strategies and best practices for creating, targeting and evaluating public health and behavior change campaigns.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  Based on indicators of intent, Google evaluates various levels of behavior change in relation to campaign exposure using the following tools: - Brand Lift surveys: Using control and exposed groups of respondents, Brand Lift surveys measures Google campaigns’ efficacy in creating lift in awareness, recall, consideration, favorability, intent, and interest for the campaign, organization, or behavior change. - Google Consumer Surveys: Google’s online survey market research tool - Aggregated search results across Google properties: Correlates level of exposure with increase or decrease in certain types of searches across Google properties - Custom research with third party research vendors - YouTube and Google Analytics - AdWords account data

Conclusions:  Google’s digital marketing solutions can enhance public health campaigns and encourage audiences to make a behavior change. These strategies and tools help marketers both understand and measure the efficacy of public health campaigns with their target audiences.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Digital campaigns impact users’ likelihood to make a behavior change and should be considered an integral component of media planning for public health campaigns.