Exposure to online advertising is fundamentally changing the way consumers shop, according to new research from Yahoo! and comScore. The study, which examined the impact of search and display advertising on in-store sales for five major retailers, showed that consumers exposed to online advertising tend to research or ‘pre-shop’ online prior to purchase, and this behavior ultimately leads to increased in-store sales. These highly-engaged ‘pre-shoppers’ spend an average of 41% more in-store when compared to consumers not exposed to online advertising.
Insights from the study also included:
– Consumers exposed to online advertising are more engaged: Consumers exposed to display and/or search advertising viewed an average of six more pages during the period in which they were researching compared to those not exposed to advertising.
– Almost 90% of the incremental sales generated by online advertising take place in-store. Consumers exposed to online advertising spent an incremental six dollars in-store for every one dollar spent online.
– Integrated search and display campaigns have maximum impact: Combined search and display ad campaigns resulted in deeper engagement for consumers exposed to those ads, leading to increased sales.
