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Online ads and offline sales: measuring the effect of retail advertising via a controlled experiment on Yahoo!

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  • Randall Lewis
  • David Reiley

Abstract

A randomized experiment with 1.6 million customers measures positive causal effects of online advertising for a major retailer. The advertising profitably increases purchases by 5%. 93% of the increase occurs in brick-and-mortar stores; 78% of the increase derives from consumers who never click the ads. Our large sample reaches the statistical frontier for measuring economically relevant effects. We improve econometric efficiency by supplementing our experimental variation with non-experimental variation caused by consumer browsing behavior. Our experiment provides a specification check for observational difference-in-differences and cross-sectional estimators; the latter exhibits a large negative bias three times the estimated experimental effect. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Randall Lewis & David Reiley, 2014. "Online ads and offline sales: measuring the effect of retail advertising via a controlled experiment on Yahoo!," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 235-266, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:qmktec:v:12:y:2014:i:3:p:235-266
    DOI: 10.1007/s11129-014-9146-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Online advertising; Display advertising; Advertising effectiveness; Field experiment; Difference in differences; Codes: C93 - Field Experiments; M37 - Advertising; D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

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