True value of online?

After a quiet period on the blog, we're back with some exciting new research from a partnership with Deutsche Bank and GfK. We've been speaking to advertisers for a long time who have been trying to gain an understanding of how their purchase cycle works, and how they can attribute value correctly to each marketing channel. We know that there is a definite 'research online, purchase offline', or 'ROPO' effect, but many clients struggle to understand the real value that online marketing brings to their business.

Deutsche Bank, GfK and Google recently carried out a cross-channel path-to-purchase study for German financial services purchases. Please get in touch with your account team for more detail, but a few highlights:

• The majority of offline purchases are preceded by an online research process, therefore counting the number of contracts concluded online understates the role of the internet

• ROPO effect applies to 48.6% of new contracts: these are a combination of offline purchase preceded by an online research process and pure online research and purchase

• Pure online sales (10.8%) thus significantly understate the importance of the internet marketing in gaining new contracts

• The ROPO figure is much higher than typically concluded and shows that many consumers themselves underestimate their levels of internet activity

• Google is used by more than one third of all bank customers who do research on the internet before signing a contract

• Research conducted by Google users is more intensive: they visit more than twice as many domains as other users

• The average research process begins 7 1/2 weeks before the actual contract signing - so it is not the last click that counts. A continuous supply of helpful information can strengthen customer loyalty.

Source: GfK, Deutsche Bank Research & Google