Combine search, display for best results

According to the report about 90% of in-store purchases are prompted by online ads.

The study found that consumers who see online ads are more likely to "pre-shop" online - research buys, find the best deals and learn how other shoppers like the products purchased - but are still buying offline. However, their offline purchases are larger by 41% than users who aren't exposed to online ads.

“Although recent research cites 89 percent* of consumers shop for information about products online, less than 7 percent** of retail sales actually take place online,” said Amy Vener, Senior Director of Retail Category at Yahoo.

To better engage these consumers, the study indicates advertisers need to vary their ads. By spending ad dollars with search and display marketers will appeal to a wider audience. Store owners saw an increase of about 83% spent in-store by users who saw display and search ads. The combination of a search/display campaign also helped covert more users to buyers (43%), and increased the traffic by 68% to retailer websites. When relying only on search or display, retailers saw increased of 26% and 6% respectively.

Tags: display advertising, online marketing, search marketing