• by Jeff Zwelling , September 17, 2012

Want to increase your online revenue per click? Try television. I'm not kidding. We just ran a series of tests that show conclusively that television advertising boosts revenue per click for online and offline marketing channels, even social media & affiliates. Overall, the studies revealed a definite positive halo effect of TV over time on a wide range of online and offline marketing channels including radio, print, direct mail and word of mouth.

We looked at the impact of TV advertising across the spectrum of exposure including:

1. Clients that had never purchased TV previously but added it to their marketing mix during the study period
2. Clients that lowered or increased media spends during specific time periods for purposes of measuring impact both on TV and online
3. Clients that tested modifications to creative or new networks/programs on TV
4. Clients that had TV presence for multiple years

In every category we saw increases in both traffic and conversions as a result of TV exposure; some of it quite profound, such as an increase of more than 63% in the rate of conversions

(Banner or rich media ads)

So then why do marketers typically fail to recognize the impact of television on this wide range of channels? Perhaps because they traditionally believe that television only impacts the direct traffic, branded paid search and branded organic search channels. But I think it's a general failure to consider the online buying experience in a holistic framework -- and specifically, a misguided dependence by the majority of online marketers on a last-click attribution approach.

Since most companies lack the ability to perform the most basic multi-click digital attribution, layering in the complexity of lift resulting from offline impact remains elusive. These marketers typically use self-reported data, surveys or other hypothetical (and biased) sampling methods in a feeble attempt to determine the true impact of TV. Even those that have the capability to directly measure impact on click-based traffic will often take the path of least resistance and simply apply a last-click model to assess impact only on direct traffic and branded search.

It is critical to cross-attribute the correct share of the lift experienced in each channel back to television so that clients can focus their spend in the right areas to drive the maximum possible revenue and profit. Using a methodology that fails to consider the impact of TV on all marketing channels under-credits the immediate traffic impact and latent halo effects of TV's brand-equity-building results.