Site Seen: URLs Prove Valuable In Print Ads

The Magazine Publishers of America is set to release a new study showing that including URLs in magazine ads drives readers to advertiser Web sites. The analysis of 833 print ads in seven magazines, performed by VISTA's print effectiveness rating service, showed that ads with Web addresses were up to three times as likely to drive readers to a Web site, depending on the magazine category.

The biggest increases came in the home, women's service and travel categories, where ads including URLs were 103%, 98% and 186% more likely to drive readers to an advertiser Web site. Ads with URLs in the fashion category also did well, producing a 52% bump.

New research from VISTA Print Effectiveness Rating Service, based on an analysis of 833 ads in seven different magazines, reconfirmed that ads with URLs are more likely to drive readers to advertiser sites overall, as well as across the range of magazine genres. Less spectacular gains were found in the financial category, with a 22% lift, and men's, with a 38% lift.

According to the MPA, the VISTA findings corroborate a meta-analysis of nine earlier studies by Marketing Evolution. This meta-analysis showed that when URLs were included in magazine ads, they boosted the percentage of study subjects who visited the advertiser Web sites 6%, to 19% of the test group.

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