• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 18, 2008

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- The Internet has already surpassed television based on one significant statistic--the number of gross advertising impressions served. And if online publishers can figure out how to properly measure the worth of those impressions, they ultimately will overtake television in an even more important statistic: share of marketers' advertising budgets. That was the conclusion of Gian Fulgoni, executive chairman and co-founder of comScore, during a keynote here at the opening of the OMMA conference Monday.

Fulgoni shared some never-before released stats to back up his point, including a comScore analysis revealing that the Internet now delivers "50% more" gross rating points than television. The problem, he said, is that the Internet still commands only a fraction of television's "CPMs," or the advertising cost-per-thousand impressions delivered.

Fulgoni also cited statistics showing that while the Internet currently commands about 17% of the time the average person spends using media, it generates only about a 7% share of the advertising marketplace. The disparity is even more significant among younger users, who he said already spend about 30% of their media time online. At this rate, he said, "The Internet will maybe overtake TV in terms of people's time consumption."

To capitalize on those audience impressions, Fulgoni said the online medium needs to develop better metrics for proving its ROI, or return on investment, to mainstream advertisers that go beyond "the click." He championed a metric he dubbed "latency," which measures the long-term brand and sales effects of online advertising and search campaigns.

"I would cite the click," he said, adding: "If we cling to that as the metric of effectiveness, we are not going to pull these brand dollars online."

While click-through rates might be a meaningful metric for certain kinds of advertisers--especially those involved in direct marketing or financial services--he said measuring the effects of online advertising over time, including how it influences offline purchase activity, would be key to online's advertising market share growth.

To illustrate the impact online advertising has on offline consumer behavior, Fulgoni cited recent research conducted by Procter & Gamble in conjunction with Yahoo and SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), which will be presented at the upcoming ARF conference in New York.

The study analyzed the impact that search advertising has on consumer packaged goods in a variety of categories and found that search can influence the long-term brand preferences of online users. He said the study found that 36% of search users were likely to switch consumer packaged goods brands for reasons "other than price," vs. only 29% for non-search users.

Fulgoni said the study proves the latency effect of search, and that it compares favorably with television. Before joining comScore 13 years ago, Fulgoni was head of Information Resources Inc., where he was privy to numerous studies on the sales effects of television advertising. He said that historically, about 40% of the weight of most TV advertising campaigns generates "statistically significant" sales results, but that only about 20% truly "paid out."

As online advertising becomes more video-oriented, and as publishers and advertisers learn to utilize behavioral targeting more effectively, Fulgoni suggested its long-term sales impact will compare favorably with television.