• by October 2, 2000

Could it be? Online advertising is not the holy grail of e- commerce success? Apparently so, according to a new study, which says online advertising isn't always the best measure of success for e-commerce companies.

As eBiz reported this morning, while many e-tailers are cutting their offline ad spending, citing higher efficiency possible with advertising online, they're incorrect to assume click-through and ensuing sales are a measure of their online ads' effectiveness, according to Rick Watrall, a partner with Hudson River Group, a market research firm.

"If companies believe their Web ads are driving traffic and sales, they naturally tend to spend more of their marketing dollars on the Web," he says. "But they risk doing so at the expense of other marketing initiatives, which may, in fact, account for their ads' apparent success."

The study points out that while online tracking is certainly an important tool, there's a widespread misunderstanding about the Web being able to tell advertisers how effective their online ads are without considering the influence of other marketing efforts, such as print, outdoor, radio and television.

The study concludes it is important for companies to find out which marketing efforts really pay off so they can adjust their spending accordingly.

How's that for sober thinking?