2 new studies and their findings were revealed recently, one of them commissioned by Yahoo. The Yahoo study involved 175,00 subjects who were divided by their exposure, or non-exposure, to online ads.
Their demographics and ‘behavior’ patterns were identical otherwise. Very interesting data emerged that showed the strength online advertising gives to your offline sales:
> Those shown ads online did more pre-shopping, ie research, and they spent 41% more in-store than their non-exposed counterparts.
The 2nd study, by comScore surveyed 3,000 consumers. They found that these local searchers (ie people specifically looking for a store, product, service offered in their area) followed up their online research with offline contact 82% of the time.
That contact took the form of a store visit, phone call and/or purchase. Of those who made the offline follow-up, 61% of them made a purchase. That’s not a bad payoff.
The lesson here is that online advertising – whether that’s Google Ads, or Bing/Yahoo Ads’ program – bring profits and business to you offline as much, even more, than through online means.
A Google Ads campaign that doesn’t produce emails or other online interaction isn’t necessarily an unproductive effort. There’s more to online marketing than just having a website.