The Offline Impact Of Online Advertising

Web advertising stimulates off-line sales and in most cases, online campaigns increase sales more at advertisers’ retail cash registers than on their websites, according to a report by comScore.

The data was gathered by observing the behaviors and purchase patterns of over two million people that had installed comScore's tracking software on their PCs. The conclusion was that online advertising influences consumers' behavior

A study conducted for a retailer with more than $15 billion in annual revenues (most from their store) revealed that U.S. sales increased by 40% online and by 50% off-line among people exposed to an online search ads and display-ads.

The study also found that people tend to respond "with their wallets" more to search ads than to display ads. Search ads are text advertising that appear on search engines based on a search query and only appear after a user has searched for that term. They are generally more costly per impression than are display ads. The study concludes that using both types of ads in one campaign increases sales more than the two, added together, do in separate campaigns.