Online display advertising

Thanks Jo

How online display advertising influences search volumes
Published: 04 June 2007

Mike Teasdale, Planning Director at online marketing agency Harvest Digital discusses the connections between online display activity and search and reveals some interesting consumer trends.

A recent Atlas survey on the ‘halo effect’ between display and search discovered an average uplift on conversion rates of 22 per cent on searchers who had recently been exposed to a display advertisement from the same company.

Research using adserving data like this has the advantage of using massive amounts of customer data across different companies, but there are some issues with the accuracy of the data – for example, cookie deletion by users can skew the results.

So we turned to primary research with consumers to ask them directly whether display advertising influenced their subsequent searching behaviour.

We ran a survey in conjunction with Adviva, the leading advertising network, to assess attitudes to online travel purchasing. Research was conducted and compiled by Nielsen//NetRatings with over 900 respondents.

Research findings
Respondents were asked whether they would click on an ad, do a search or go directly to the advertiser’s website if they saw an online advertisement.

We expected clicking on a banner to be the most popular option – but surprisingly only 26 per cent of our sample said that they would click on a banner to respond.

In fact search was the most popular option. This was split between searches for the advertiser’s name (26per cent) or for a general term relating to the advertisement (31per cent). So more than twice as many people are being driven to a search engine by banner advertising than by clicking directly on the banner!

Retail channels also benefit, with 4 per cent claiming they would visit a high street store having seen a banner.

What’s going on here?
At first, these findings seem counter-intuitive – after all, what could be easier than clicking on a banner?
Much web activity is task-driven. How much is that flight? What’s the weather like in Hull? Clicking on a banner distracts from the completion of a task, people tend to follow up on the advertisement afterwards. Many consumers seem to be treating the activity more like posters or TV.

Implications of this research
One key implication is in how we judge the effectiveness of online activity. Focusing on the last click before a transaction will often rate search marketing as the most cost-effective channel, underestimating the part display advertising plays.

Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings observes, "The unrivalled ability of the Internet to provide marketers with detailed information on direct user response to online ads often means the whole story is ignored. Our research highlights how 'click-through-tunnel-vision' ignores the larger or delayed impact that the ad can have on viewer behaviour or perception. After all, you don't just measure the success of a poster by how many people buy the product advertised from the nearest shop."

Todd Treusdell, CEO at Adviva comments: “Display activity gives clients the opportunity to reach large numbers of internet users at a relatively low cost. It’s important to appreciate (as this research underlines) that direct clicks are only one way that the advertising is working. Consumers are also doing searches, going directly to your web site and even visiting your retail store – all prompted by an online advertising campaign.”

The importance of an integrated approach to search and display
The most striking finding is how many searches are being prompted by online display activity.
Unfortunately for brand owners, the research suggests that more searches are going to generic terms like “package holiday Cyprus” than to the brand itself.

Search needs to be optimised to work with banner advertising, by anticipating searches that are likely to be prompted by the banner and ensure a higher rank for search results.
Although the speed and accuracy digital marketing enjoys is the envy of other marketing channels, the numbers do not always give a true indication.

Just as online is influenced by activity in offline channels, different online channels also seem to have a profound influence on each other.

This research strongly suggests that measuring display activity by CTR alone underestimates the impact of that activity. For every click on a banner, our research implies at least two related searches and a further direct visit to the advertiser’s web site.

Research on the Adviva network conducted by Nielsen/Netratings