What is the CPLU and How to Analyze It?

If you provide your campaign budget and reach data, and select the right KPIs in your brand lift study, we can estimate a Cost Per Lifted User (CPLU). Here's everything you need to know about this val

Introduction

The Cost Per Lifted User (CPLU) is a metric designed to measure the return on investment (ROI) of your campaign by isolating conversions (or new "lifted users") that occurred solely because of your advertising efforts. By focusing exclusively on incremental conversions, CPLU enables accurate ROI calculations that reflect real financial value generated by your campaign spend, leading to more strategic and profitable budget allocation decisions.

👉 The lower the CPLU, the better — it means your campaign is effective at increasing brand impact, and doing so cost-efficiently.

What is a lifted user

A 'Lifted User' is a term used to describe a consumer's specific reaction to a brand. This happens when a consumer correlates a brand with positive attributes or intents, whether or not they remember seeing a specific advertising campaign by that brand. The concept involves two main parts:

• Brand Attribution: A Lifted User has successfully made a positive association with the brand in question, after being exposed to the ad on the questionnaire.

• Positive Response to Impact KPIs: Impact KPIs cover various factors such as brand image, brand familiarity, consideration, and purchase intent. A positive response to these KPIs denotes a user is 'lifted'.

To illustrate, suppose your Brand lift contains these KPIs:

• Ad recall

• Attribution,

• Brand Image,

• Brand Familiarity,

• Consideration.

A Lifted User, in this case, would be someone displaying a strong brand familiarity, a positive brand image and a positive Purchase consideration, and correctly associating the campaign with the right brand.

It is important to note that depending on the combination of KPIs you use, the definition of a “lifted user” will change. For example, it will be easier to have more lifted users based on a brand lift that contains 2 impacts KPIs, vs one that contains 3 or more impact KPIs.

Conditions to calculate the CPLU

It is only possible to calculate the CPLU on these conditions:

• The brand lift must contain the Attribution KPI : we consider a lifted respondent must attribute the ad to the right brand.

• The brand lift must contain at list 2 impact KPIs (for example Brand image, Consideration, Purchase intent, Brand preference…)

• You must provide the budget of your campaign and the estimated unique reach.

Even if your brand lift meets all these conditions, you may still see the following message on the dashboard:

When hovering your mouse over "N/A," this message will appear: "The ad campaign's performance does not allow calculation of a Cost per Lifted User for this media."

This happens when your campaign does not generate any lifted users, which can occur especially when you have 3 or more impact KPIs (it is harder to achieve a "lift" across a larger number of KPIs).

How CPLU is calculated

Step by step explanation

Let's walk through a detailed example to illustrate how CPLU is calculated:

Campaign Parameters:

• Budget (B): $20,000

• Reach (R): 1,000,000 people

• Ad Recall Rate (A): 40%

• Conversion Rate among Ad Recall respondents (Ca): 20%

• Conversion Rate among Non-Ad Recall respondents (Cna): 10%

1

Estimation of number of "lifted users" among Ad recall respondents

We estimate how many people were lifted in the group that remember seeing the ad, using the total reach of the campaign and the ad recall rate.

2

Estimation of number of "lifted users" among Non ad recall respondents

We calculate how many people were lifted in the group that didn’t see the ad, using their conversion rate.

3

Estimation of number of natural "lifted users" among a non-exposed audience

We estimate how many people would have been lifted if no one had seen the ad, based on the natural conversion rate.

4

Estimation of number of incremental "lifted users"

We find the extra lift caused by the campaign by comparing actual lift to what would have happened without it.

5

CPLU calculation

We divide the campaign cost by this extra lift to get the cost per lifted user (CPLU).

Formula

The general formula for CPLU is:

CPLU = B / {R × [[(A × Ca) + (1-A) × Cna] - Cna]}

Where:

• B = Campaign Budget

• R = Total Reach

• A = Ad Recall Rate

• Ca = Conversion Rate among Ad Recall respondents

• Cna = Conversion Rate among Non-Ad Recall respondents (baseline)

The denominator represents the incremental lifts generated by the campaign, calculated as the difference between actual conversions and what would have occurred naturally.

Objectives of CPLU

CPLU serves several functions in campaign performance analysis:

• True ROI Measurement: By isolating conversions directly attributable to your campaign, CPLU provides a more accurate assessment of return on investment than traditional conversion metrics.

• Campaign Efficiency Comparison: CPLU enables meaningful comparisons between campaigns with different audience sizes, exposure levels, or natural conversion rates, as it standardizes performance based on incremental impact.

• Budget Optimization: Understanding the true cost of incremental conversions helps optimize budget allocation across campaigns, channels, and audiences for maximum efficiency.

How to Read and Interpret CPLU

CPLU becomes more meaningful when viewed in context:

• Lower CPLU = Better Performance: A lower value means you're generating lift more efficiently.

• Comparisons require consistent KPIs: To compare CPLUs across campaigns, they must include the same set of KPIs.

There is currently no standard CPLU benchmark at Happydemics, as budget and reach data are not always provided, and many campaigns don't meet the required KPI conditions. We're actively working on building reliable benchmarks based on consistent KPI combinations and industry categories.