Advertising · Large randomized controlled display-advertising field experiment: eligible customers were randomly assigned to receive retail ads or a control condition, with purchases measured using the retailer's transaction data, including offline sales.
Online Ads and Offline Sales: Measuring the Effect of Retail Advertising via a Controlled Experiment on Yahoo!
Quantitative Marketing and Economics · 2014
Summary
The experiment finds a positive causal effect of online advertising on retail sales, including offline purchases, and reports that the campaign was profitable. It demonstrates that display advertising can generate measurable sales beyond the online channel.
For your marketing
Possible founder application
Use this study as a bounded example related to online ads and offline sales: measuring the effect of retail advertising via a controlled experiment on yahoo!; evaluate whether its customers, intervention and outcome match your own context.
Reported result
What the study found
The experiment finds a positive causal effect of online advertising on retail sales, including offline purchases, and reports that the campaign was profitable. It demonstrates that display advertising can generate measurable sales beyond the online channel.
Research question
What the authors investigated
What does online ads and offline sales: measuring the effect of retail advertising via a controlled experiment on yahoo! show about customer behavior or marketing outcomes?
Design
Large randomized controlled display-advertising field experiment: eligible customers were randomly assigned to receive retail ads or a control condition, with purchases measured using the retailer's transaction data, including offline sales.
Sample and setting
Approximately 1.6 million existing customers of a major retailer reached through Yahoo! advertising; the outcome was subsequent retailer purchasing rather than only online clicks or pixel conversions.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The evidence is from one major retailer, one campaign/advertising environment, and primarily existing customers, limiting external validity to other advertisers, prospecting campaigns, products, and platforms. Because the treatment is an advertising bundle delivered through Yahoo!, the experiment does not separately identify creative, placement, frequency, or targeting mechanisms. Full-text methods and correction history were not independently checked.
Research sources
Study metadata and reported results were cross-checked against a direct publisher-page retrieval; detailed full-text methods were not reviewed.