Boost Offline Revenue with PPC

With online ad spend predicted to exceed print advertising spend in 2012, it is clear that more and more businesses are recognizing the power of Internet marketing and its potential for generating revenue.  A recently concluded two-year study by the marketing analytics company RevTrax reaffirms the value of online marketing for businesses, even as it impacts offline sales and revenue for multichannel retailers.

The RevTrax study used cross-channel tracking methodology via online coupons with unique barcodes to track in-store purchases back to online paid ads.  Using this methodology, the study found that paid search resulted in an additional $6 of offline revenue for every $1 of online revenue generated.

What This Means
The online marketers are right.  We’ve preached for years how paid search has positive impacts on other marketing (online and offline) efforts and on organic search.  We’ve certainly suspected that paid search is a big driver of offline revenue too.  The RevTrax study goes beyond our own efforts of urging clients to ask where new customers heard about their brand and it confirms our suspicions in a more data rich and relevant way.

If you are a multichannel retailer, take a look at the ecommerce revenue that you’ve tracked from your paid search efforts, and consider how much more paid search may be doing for your bottomline beyond those revenue numbers.  Think of ways that your online efforts can be used to bolster offline sales via the implementation of paid search strategy, targeted landing pages, and special online offers for in-store savings.