Recent studies have shown that, while search gets a big piece of the interactive media pie (+-40% at last count), it would not work as well if underlying Web campaigns were pulled. In these cases, even if the underlying Web campaign did not prove to be efficient from an ROI standpoint, they support the efficiency of the search ROI. When the Web campaign is pulled, the search effort does not perform as well.

This has led the industry to put out a call for more research on the various touchpoints that a consumer sees in a Web campaign. We call this multiple attribution protocol or MAP. Companies like Atlas DMT and DoubleClick are actively developing tools that will permit us to see not just the click but all of the exposures that a consumer got before clicking. This will enable us to create algorithms that will properly credit all interactive media, even if they are not the last click or view-through prior to a sale or other action.

From a branding standpoint, a recent study by Marketing Evolution in 2006 for Magazine Publishers of America (which obviously showed the benefits in adding consumer magazines to the mix) also showed some very interesting data points for Web/TV combinations. With TV alone indexing at 100, brand awareness increased to 138 when online was added to TV in the mix. This increase was the average across an aggregate of 20 studies, 10 of which had sufficient sample size to examine each combination of media.

Clearly, where affordable for a client, a media mix is beneficial and the addition of Web activity to TV activity can increase both awareness and sales.

We're always looking for more information on this topic. If you have studies, anecdotes or other information, send them to the blog below (or drop me a line at smith@mediasmith.com), and maybe we'll feature them in a future Metrics Insider.