Atlas Institute, a unit of aQuantive, Inc. released a study on Monday titled "How Overlap Impacts Reach, Frequency and Conversions" which examined the impact of advertising across Web portals such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL.
According to the study, the current reporting standard attributing all online conversions to the last impression or click seen is incorrect.
"The study’s findings show that consumers are more likely to convert after viewing ads on multiple Web sites," the press release stated. "Therefore, it is more accurate for marketers to attribute conversions to a full set of impressions and/or clicks."
The three major findings were:
"Consumers reached across multiple publishers were twice as likely to convert as those reached only on a single publisher.
Ninety percent of the consumers that converted were reached by placements other than the last ad seen.
Two out of three consumers who eventually took a responsive action were reached by ads across multiple portal sites before converting."
"It’s critical that marketers review all consumer touch-points to determine credit for conversions," said Jed Fowler, analyst at Atlas Institute.
Kevin Newcomb at SearchEngineWatch.com says that "marketers should measure overlap in every campaign, and maximize its effect for branding or minimize its impact on frequency, which could negatively impact direct response campaigns."
Fowler added, "Overlap across publishers has tremendous implications for an ad campaign’s performance, marketers can no longer ignore the magnitude of reaching consumers across multiple sites"
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?
ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070611005298&newsLang=en
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070611-120020
http://www.atlassolutions.com/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=
1758&LangType=1033
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