Social Media Advertising Research & Evidence-Based Practice 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary risk of using vanity metrics (likes, shares) as the main measure of social ad success?
- They are too expensive to track
- They may not correlate with actual business outcomes like revenue (Correct answer)
- They are unavailable on most ad platforms
- They require third-party verification tools
Correct answer: They may not correlate with actual business outcomes like revenue
Vanity metrics look impressive but often fail to reflect meaningful business impact such as sales, leads, or customer lifetime value.
Question 2: When applying evidence-based practice to social ad strategy, which source of evidence is considered the most rigorous?
- Peer-reviewed meta-analyses of controlled studies (Correct answer)
- Industry blog posts from top ad agencies
- Platform-provided case studies
- Competitor campaign teardowns
Correct answer: Peer-reviewed meta-analyses of controlled studies
Meta-analyses synthesize findings from multiple controlled studies, making them the highest-quality evidence in research hierarchies.
Question 3: A brand tests two ad headlines but forgets to control for differences in audience targeting between the two groups. This introduces:
- Measurement error
- A confounding variable (Correct answer)
- Survivorship bias
- Response set bias
Correct answer: A confounding variable
A confounding variable is an uncontrolled factor that can explain observed differences, making it impossible to isolate the true effect of the variable being tested.
Question 4: Which research principle states that the simplest explanation consistent with the data should be preferred?
- Law of large numbers
- Occam's Razor (Correct answer)
- Central limit theorem
- Bayes' theorem
Correct answer: Occam's Razor
Occam's Razor (parsimony) advises choosing the simplest hypothesis that adequately explains the observed findings.
Question 5: An advertiser segments post-campaign survey data by age and finds that older users recall the ad more. This analysis technique is called:
- Predictive modeling
- Subgroup analysis (Correct answer)
- Sequential testing
- Propensity score matching
Correct answer: Subgroup analysis
Subgroup analysis examines whether effects differ across specific segments of the sample population.
Question 6: What does a high standard deviation in social ad performance data indicate?
- The campaign consistently hit its targets
- There is high variability or inconsistency in results across the dataset (Correct answer)
- The cost per result was optimally low
- Audience overlap between ad sets was minimal
Correct answer: There is high variability or inconsistency in results across the dataset
A high standard deviation means data points are spread widely around the mean, indicating inconsistent or highly variable performance.
Question 7: Which ethical research consideration requires that social media ad experiment participants are informed about data collection practices?
- Replication transparency
- Informed consent (Correct answer)
- Researcher positionality
- Debriefing protocol
Correct answer: Informed consent
Informed consent requires researchers to disclose how participant data will be collected and used before the study begins.
Social Media Advertising Research & Evidence-Based Practice 5
What is the primary risk of using vanity metrics (likes, shares) as the main measure of social ad success?