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Yahoo to Offer Marketers New Research Tool

Internet advertising is growing in leaps and bounds, but in terms of measurement it still poses the same challenges for ROI-minded marketers as traditional advertising. To that end, Yahoo has struck a deal with a research company that uses econometric analysis to measure the effectiveness of online advertising on sales. A branch of economics, econometrics uses mathematical calculations to measure the relationship between different sets of events. To determine an advertisement's effectiveness, analysts use complex equations to estimate how factors such as weather, price cuts, and advertising impact sales. Marketers have used the technique to research the value of TV and print ads since the 1980s. It has received more attention from ad agencies in recent years amid an increasingly fragmented media environment. Online advertising spending in the U.S. rose 34 percent to $3.1 billion in the three months to September from the year-earlier period, according to estimates by trade group Internet Advertising Bureau.

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