Advertising and promotion · 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!
Randall A. Lewis, David H. Reiley (2014). Online Ads and Offline Sales: Measuring the Effect of Retail Advertising via a Controlled Experiment on Yahoo!. Quantitative Marketing and Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11129-014-9146-6
Plain-English take
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.
How much weight to give this
4/5 Field or experimental evidence with bounded scope
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every 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.
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.
Review the paper for comparison conditions and analysis.
Publisher record checked; detailed methods were not verified.
Double-blind? Blinding was not established from the publisher page.
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.
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.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
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.
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.
Evidence access
Publisher page; full-text availability varies and was not established.
Study metadata and reported results were cross-checked against a direct publisher-page retrieval; detailed full-text methods were not reviewed.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.