Ask a consumer to what degree they are influenced by advertising (whether it's television advertising, direct mail or online advertising) and they're highly likely to tell you that they aren't. They're generally wrong. Monitoring their actual actions in response to your marketing communication efforts can yield some interesting--and valuable--results.

Consider those little postcards that drop out of magazines and universally irritate magazine readers everywhere. Most of us, if asked, would say they "don't work." Yet, advertisers continue to use them. Why? Because they do work--at least to the extent that the response generated more than covers the cost of the effort. 

The same is true of telemarketing, annoying Internet pop-up ads and other marketing efforts that few consumers would admit influence them yet whose advertisers know (hopefully through metrics that they monitor) work.

The influence of advertising and other forms of marketing communications is subtle and often subconscious. We, as consumers, don't really know when, how or why we're being influenced to think, do or believe certain things. Yet various elements of influence are impacting us continually. 

Marketers can't learn much by asking us how we think we might act, or how we think we are influenced. We're not good judges of what we can't objectively define.

How can you evaluate your advertising efforts? Read more here.