• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 21, 2009

comScore has teamed up with Information Resources to better measure the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns in building sales of CPG brands in supermarkets, drug stores, mass merchants, convenience stores and other related retail channels.

ComScore will rely on IRI's Consumer Network household purchase panel to measure retail sales in all channels, combined with its own ability to understand which panelists were exposed to online ads.

The service will be integrated into comScore's AdEffx suite of products for media planners.

"This solution presents CPG advertisers with a comprehensive understanding of their brand sales gains that resulted from online ad exposures, whether those sales occur in supermarkets, drug stores, or other channels where their brands are purchased," said Alistair Sutcliffe, comScore vice president.

The partnership was driven by the realization that consumers today experience brands and their campaigns across multiple channels, according to Robert Tomei, president of Consumer and Shopper Insights at IRI.

"Today's marketers must be more efficient and effective with their online campaigns while at the same time, be in a position to evaluate how online behavior drives offline sales," said Tomei.

IRI makes its expertise to available to other industry researchers. This summer, it formed a joint venture with the Nielsen Co. to process consumer purchase data from a common set of households. As such, the companies will conduct competing research and analysis based on a common panel of consumers, while individual panels identify factors such as who is buying, where and how often.

Earlier this month, meanwhile, IRI entered into strategic partnerships with [X + 1] and Dynamic Logic to better support CPGs, and retail industries through data analysis and a series of technologies and digital media platforms.

Similar to the comScore deal, the separate technologies from [X + 1] and Dynamic Logic integrate into IRI's core Consumer Network purchase data, predictive modeling and analytic platform to monitor online research and advertising for the CPG and retail industries.

About 55,000 households scan every grocery item that comes into the home. Consumers keep diaries on where they bought the goods. IRI provides data to CPGs. The agreement gives CPG companies the metrics to verify that their online campaigns work.

Internet advertising is the only segment to see growth in advertising spending share -- up 6.5% in the first half of 2009, according to Tomei.