Display advertising campaigns generally outperform search campaigns when sales lift is measured by reach. However, some advertisers have shifted display marketing dollars toward search with the belief that search advertising is “more measurable” and that it provides a higher return-on-investment.
The truth is that a combination of search and display ads returns the highest return-on-investment. When combined, search and display advertising deliver profoundly better results than when used independently.
A study sponsored by Yahoo! with comScore showed “a significant lift in on-site engagement and an increase in online and offline purchasing by consumers who are exposed to integrated campaigns that employ both types of online advertising.”
Third-party studies have shown that “users exposed to both search and display ads convert at a higher rate: an average of 22 percent better than search alone, and 400 percent better than display only.”
Recent research has been published showing the significant value of display advertising campaigns to the overall effectiveness of search marketing activities. Based on this research, the combination of a display and search campaign delivers substantial synergy, with the sales lift from the combined strategy being greater than the sum of the individual components.
What does this mean? If an advertiser is only using search marketing to increase lift, they are leaving a large percentage of potential sales on the table.
