MARKET WATCH

Findings revealed that over the course of twelve weeks that online ad campaigns with an average reach of 40 percent of their target segment successfully grew retail sales of the advertised brands by an average of 9 percent. The research was conducted by examining the retail purchasing behaviour of members of the comScore panel of 2 million Internet users who have given comScore explicit permission to monitor their online behaviour. The studies focused on the 200,000 comScore and dunnhumbyUSA panelists who were members of supermarket loyalty programmes and whose retail buying behaviour was measured through point-of-sale UPC scanners when the panelists presented their membership cards at the checkout lanes of participating supermarket stores.

By comparing the retail purchasing of comScore panelists who were exposed to online advertising campaigns for a variety of CPG brands with the purchase behaviour of groups of “control” panelists who were not exposed to such campaigns, comScore was able to isolate the impact of the advertising campaigns in lifting retail sales of the advertised brands. The groups of control panelists were selected to be demographically and behaviorally similar to the exposed panelists prior to the start of the campaigns. The use of such an analytical design is commonplace in media research and helps ensure that the impact of the advertising campaigns being evaluated can be isolated and accurately measured.

IRI published the results of 73 such studies in their seminal paper “How Advertising Works” showing that 36 percent of the studies resulted in a statistically significant sales increase at retail. Across all tests conducted, the average sales lift that can be attributed to the impact of TV advertising was approximately 8 percent over a one-year period.

Gian Fulgoni, executive chairman of comScore said: “These early results confirm the ability of online advertising to successfully build retail sales of CPG brands on par with the impact of television advertising. It is likely that the more precise targeting ability of the Internet – especially in terms of accurately reaching the desired demographic segment - is a key reason for its effectiveness. That is meaningful in and of itself, but when you take into account the fact that online advertising is generally less costly than television, these results take on even greater significance.”


More information:
Please send an e-mail to   or call our office in London at +44 20 7291-4900. To reach out to our team in Scandinavia, please e-mail to or call them at +46 707-776751.