Atlas Study Advises Measuring Across Web-Ad Channels to Optimize Synergy
Tuesday, 25 July 2006
Atlas, a provider of digital marketing technologies and expertise, and an operating unit of aQuantive, Inc., released a study on the synergy between advertising on the two most prominent online advertising channels.
The Atlas Institute segmented users into three distinct groups based on their media exposure: display only, search only, and search and display.
While it has often been assumed that the overall effect is greater than the sum of the parts, the Atlas Institute proved the synergy by analyzing for one month 11 advertisers who track both display media and sponsored search clicks via a third-party ad server.
The study analyzed more than 10.8 million impressions and 2.5 millions search clicks from 1.8 million users.
The study, entitled "The Combined Impact of Search and Display Advertising – Why Advertisers Should Measure Across Channels," found that on average, those users exposed to both display and search advertising converted at a rate 22 percent higher than search alone, providing one of the industry's first values for cross channel synergy.
"On average, 44 percent of search users are also being shown display ads from the same advertiser, which means that there is significant enough overlap that advertisers should be measuring this effect," said Esco Strong of the Atlas Institute, and author of the report. "The lift of conversion rates differed greatly across advertisers, suggesting that the synergy between these channels is highly variable, depending on the advertiser and the campaign."
Included in the Digital Marketing Insight are four online advertising tips that resulted from the findings. Atlas also explains the reason for the combined effect and the impact of frequency. Relative conversion rates between the three groups across multiple advertisers are cited, in addition to conversion rate lift by individual advertiser.
Xerox Corporation, a leading technology company that participated in the study, is running two integrated global ad campaigns across a range of online and traditional media: one supporting Xerox color products and solutions, and the other supporting Xerox's consulting services.
"Customers don't see ads in silos. Neither should marketers," said Barbara Basney, Director of Global Advertising at Xerox Corporation. "Atlas Institute's cross-channel study is providing quantitative validation that can help spur the next generation of web-marketing optimization -- optimizing the synergy between online advertising channels."
Young-Bean Song, vice president of Analytics and the Atlas Institute, also commented on the research, saying, "Measuring and optimizing cross channel synergies is fundamental to making good marketing investment decisions. This landmark study changes the way the industry thinks about measuring ROI online -- and this is only the beginning."