Click-throughs are only the first step in an online campaign, study says
It stands to reason that online ads act just like offline ads—the target of the ad doesn’t take the immediate intended action. A survey out this week from DoubleClick Inc. shows that consumers who viewed but didn’t click on an online ad were more likely than clickers to convert to an advertiser’s intended activity, such as making a purchase or registering for e-mail. “The post-impression impact of online advertising still far outweighs post-click impact,” the online marketing and research firm says in its Q2 Ad Serving Trend Report.
The average click-through rate for ads served in the second quarter was 0.43%, compared to a view-through rate of 0.73%, DoubleClick says. It defines view-through rate as a measurement of advertiser-intended actions taken by consumers within 30 days of viewing but not clicking on an online ad. For example, view-through conversions might result when a consumer who viewed an online ad comes back days later to the advertiser’s web site to purchase the advertised product.
When advertisers tracked a subset of Q2 ads to measure online conversions, six times as many conversions resulted from view-through activity than from click-throughs, DoubleClick says.
Because the delayed view-through conversions could result from other advertising activity, such as a consumer’s response to an offline ad viewed after the online ad, DoubleClick says, it conducted a separate study with Continental Airlines. It tested conversion rates among two groups of consumers exposed to two sets of ads. Over the course of a 30-day period, the study found that 67.5% of view-through conversions, including registrations and purchases, were attributable to the advertiser’s intended online ads, DoubleClick and Continental say.
“The indirect response study proves to us what we have long believed – that the impact of online advertising pays dividends over time,” says Colleen Aranda, manager of interactive marketing for Continental. “The view-through is a significant and real metric for measuring campaign performance.”
DoubleClick also notes that use of rich media increased 34% year-over-year in Q2, accounting for 42.7% of ads served. It adds that growth in rich media ads in Q2 remained unchanged over Q1, possibly indicating a seasonal effect or a maturing of the market.
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