Although analysts are predicting a massive shakeout in the online retail industry, it is becoming increasingly apparent that online advertising - by online-only retailers - has a very positive
impact when it comes to increasing quality visits to shopping sites.
At least that's what AdRelevance found. Their new research report, "The Rise (and Fall?) of Online Retail," reveals a
strong positive correlation between online advertising and engaged visitors - or visitors who spend at least three minutes a day viewing content at an online entity - to online retail sites.
According to report - available at http://www.adrelevance.com - successful online-only retailers such as Amazon.com and eBay, have created a brand name by running regular online ad campaigns
consisting of 168 million average monthly impressions. On the other hand, less successful companies often have little to no online advertising and tend to operate in highly saturated or fragmented
categories.
Also, although retail ad impressions declined significantly with NASDAQ's April downturn - falling from 19% growth in February to a negative 9% loss in April - they rebounded in
May, showing 6% growth. Charlie Buchwalter, VP of media research at AdRelevance, said online retailers should think twice before deciding to decrease Internet ad budgets in response to NASDAQ's
fallout. "Despite the trying efforts of many dot-coms to build their brands with big-budget television ad campaigns, the latest AdRelevance figures for the online retail sector suggest that money
spent online advertising is growing their businesses."