Mr. Ed Keller reports

ENGAGEMENT LABS' NEW PROPRIETARY ALGORITHM LINKS TOTALSOCIAL SOLUTION TO SALES DATA FOR HUNDREDS OF BRANDS

Engagement Labs Inc. has released Version 2 of its TotalSocial measurement platform, which is predictive of consumer sales by using a new proprietary algorithm that links brands' off-line and on-line social metrics with sales performance. The new version of TotalSocial empowers brand marketers to better drive marketing ROI (return on investment) by understanding the direct link between their TotalSocial scores and sales.

The patent-pending TotalSocial data solution provides brands with unique insights and powerful analytics to understand the impact of on-line and off-line conversations that drive business results. TotalSocial reveals to marketers how their on-line and off-line conversations compare and contrast, while helping to identify areas of competitive opportunity or significant emerging threats.

The firm, which has a unique and proprietary database of on-line and off-line metrics for more than 500 brands in the United States and 350 in the United Kingdom, acquired U.S. sales data for a substantial number of these brands from leading sources of syndicated sales data such as Nielsen, NPD Group and others, ranging from 2014 to 2016, with a focus on more recent time periods. The data were used to develop predictive statistical models determining the impact of each of eight core metrics to consumer purchases, which resulted in the most extensive links between word-of-mouth and social media metrics to sales.

The link between the sales data and the word-of-mouth data was measured through statistical regression. By observing the correlation between how word-of-mouth data increase or decrease as compared with sales patterns at the same time or beforehand, Engagement Labs was able to isolate both the impact and significance of TotalSocial scores. The data were controlled for seasonal impacts and trends to ensure the company was measuring true incremental impact.

"Engagement Labs is committed to building the best vehicle for measuring a brand's social performance both on- and off-line because we know how important this holistic view is to brand performance," said Ed Keller, chief executive officer of Engagement Labs. "When we released TotalSocial last fall, it provided a unique window for brands to understand the totality of conversation about them, including the important but hard-to-measure face-to-face conversations as well as the conversations on social media. Our goal has always been to go beyond measurement, to make sure we could answer the all-important question, 'with what impact?' Now, we're able to demonstrate the direct linkage between a brand's TotalSocial scores and sales."

The models developed by Engagement Labs assign near-equal weight in the algorithm for on-line and off-line consumer conversations, demonstrating the critical impact of consumer recommendations and conversations that happen both face to face and in social media. This empirically validates the importance of a TotalSocial solution for marketers. Off-line volume and sentiment carry the highest weights, compared with all the other metrics, which include the sharing of brand content or the engagement of influencers, as well as on-line volume and sentiment.

"The empirical data which marries Engagement Labs' TotalSocial scores with third party sales data proves beyond a doubt that a brand's TotalSocial score has a strong correlation to its sales data," added Brad Fay, Engagement Labs' chief commercial officer. "Brand marketers should ask themselves two questions: 'How do I improve my TotalSocial scores?' and 'how do I explain to the c-suite where we should be investing our marketing dollars to drive sales?"

In addition to the outcomes-based weightings, Version 2 also includes updates which were designed to increase the timely delivery of data, as well as to make room for a more customized application of the system.

About Engagement Labs Inc.

Engagement Labs is the world's first TotalSocial company, offering intelligent data, analytics and insights for marketers. TotalSocial was built on the pillars of Engagement Labs' patented social media measurement tool and the world's only off-line word-of-mouth tracking system for brands and tracks 500 brands within the United States across 17 major industry categories and 350 brands in the United Kingdom.