• The DAGMAR model defines the four steps of an effective advertising campaign as causing awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action.
• The model stresses defining the segment of the market that the campaign seeks to reach.
• DAGMAR also requires an evaluation of the campaign’s success against a pre-set benchmark.

The DAGMAR approach advocates a marketing strategy that guides the consumer through four phases: awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action. That path has become known by its acronym as the ACCA formula. The four steps of the campaign are as follows:

• Generating awareness of the brand among consumers
• Increasing comprehension of the product and its benefits
• Convincing consumers that they need the product
• Persuading consumers to buy it

The DAGMAR method contains two goals. The first is to develop a communication task that accomplishes those specific ACCA steps. The second is to make sure that the success of those goals can be measured against a baseline.

Colley believed that effective advertising seeks to communicate rather than sell. He specified four basic requirements for evaluating the effectiveness of an advertising campaign: 

• Be concrete and measurable
• Define the target audience or market
• Identify the benchmark and the degree of change expected
• Specify a period during which to accomplish the objective