In a move that potentially encourages blue-chip marketers to increase their online advertising, Yahoo! and Aegis Group's Marketing Management Analytics will offer marketers a tool that assesses the
relationship between online ads and offline sales, the companies said Friday. Currently, Yahoo! offers marketers who advertise on its network of sites data about online ads -- such as how many times
users were exposed to ads. But with this new deal, MMA will offer marketers the opportunity to assess return on investment based on econometric analysis, or calculations that attempt to measure the
relationship between seemingly unrelated variables. Marketers will have to pay an extra fee for the new service. -- Gavin O'Malley
