Dynamic Logic provides online advertising effectiveness tips for retailers

Men Shown to Be Important Targets; Static Ads are as Effective as Rich Media in Influencing In-Store or Online Visitation

NEW YORK — Millward Brown’s Dynamic Logic, the leader in measuring digital advertising effectiveness, released today new insights for retail marketers to get the most out of their online ads this holiday season.

“In looking closely at retail ad effectiveness in aggregate, it became apparent that retail ads are a different animal than the average online ad,” said Aaron Katz, Director of Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms. “In fact, retail online advertising tends to perform slightly under the online average in its ability to shift most key brand impact metrics, with the exception of message association.”

Based on research from its MarketNorms® ad effectiveness database, Dynamic Logic offers the following tips for improving online retail campaigns’ effectiveness this holiday season:

1. Men are just as important as women when targeting holiday ads. Although women have higher baseline awareness of retailers and higher baseline likelihood to visit, men’s ability to associate a brand’s message with its advertising after exposure increases more than women’s.

2. While rich media helps achieve ad awareness, its ability to persuade retail store or site visitation is not significantly different from static ads.

3. Retail “intent to visit” does not vary much as frequency increases. Even at exposure frequencies of 10+, there is only a 1.3 percentage-point improvement in likelihood to visit vs. a 1.0 point improvement at 4-9 exposures. The benefit of a high number of exposures is in awareness, not store or site visits. If visits are the objective and budget is a concern, consider static images vs. rich media, and put less emphasis on frequency.

4. Celebrities and rich media help improve brand favorability for retailers. A celebrity or child in an ad can generate a 3.0 point increase in brand favorability. Compare this to only a 1.5 point boost for celebrities in CPG ads or 2.3 point gains in entertainment ads. As a bonus, kids generate a healthy 1.7 point improvement in likelihood to visit a retailer compared to a statistically insignificant 0.7 percentage-point increase for adults.

For more on online advertising effectiveness, please view a sample of Dynamic Logic’s Retail Industry Normative Report (pdf). In addition, a recent Millward Brown study reveals top reasons why people continue to shop in stores despite the convenience of online shopping.


About this Research
This research is based on more than 120 online advertising campaigns by retailers over the past three years from Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms® database, the most extensive benchmarking database for online advertising in the industry with data from over 6,000 online campaigns.

The results cited have not been adjusted for exposure frequency, demographics, ad size, Web sites, advertiser industry and other factors that may contribute to brand lift. These findings are aggregate in nature, reflect past results and are not a guarantee of future results for individual campaigns.

About Dynamic Logic
Dynamic Logic (www.dynamiclogic.com) is a leader in providing advertising effectiveness insights across all digital platforms and the broader media mix. As a Millward Brown company, Dynamic Logic offers advertisers, agencies and publishers the unique combination of world-class expertise on brand building and media coupled with normative insights from its database of thousands of digital campaigns, the largest in the industry. Founded in 1999, Dynamic Logic pioneered online branding measurement and has grown with the digital age, developing innovations across 27 digital platforms and establishing specialty practices in cross-media, social media, mobile, gaming and custom solutions.