September 27 2006

Offline ad spend's impact on online searching

Hitwise has researched the correlation between offline spend on brand or promotional advertising and the level of searches for the brand online. There is a correlation and it's great that they've covered the bases to support this intuitive conclusion. The unanswered question of course is whether the ROI is as high as below the line and direct promotion...

In this interesting posting at Hitwise UK, Heather Hopkins summarised recent research with:

* Online advertising is a highly effective medium for raising brand awareness and driving brand association; * An integrated media approach can maximise the effectiveness of all media spend * Online usage data, such as visits to websites, search term content and volume relating to a brand can be used for brand research and measurability of offline spend.

While this intuitively sounds reasonable, Hitwise are attempting to support these points with analysis.

Heather addresses the third point in her post and illustrates nicely how the search levels in the case study track the overall level of marketing activity.

The blinding flash of the obvious here then is that marketing activity increases customer awareness and activity. Heather is trying to use the "measurability" of online search activity to somehow support and validate the benefit of the ad spend.

One clear benefit of course is the attempt to appropriate a phrase. To the extent that you can plant a phrase in the public's mind then that phrase will become the distinctive search term. The article notes that the price for the term "car insurance" was £5.12, yet for "aa car insurance" it was £2.09 (both on Yahoo! search). To the extent that the AA can 'own' the association with 'car insurance' by radio jingles, bus adverts, hoardings and TV advertising they will save £3.03 for each visit.

The question, clearly, is whether the sum of the £3 savings is enough to cover the costs of the brand- and awareness-building marketing activity...

Ian Jindal