NYT: Measuring Online Ad Effectiveness

The New York Times took note of the long-standing trend where marketers indicate that they will put more money in online advertising when they are shown quantitatively that it makes sense, yet they fail to do so when presented irrefutable numbers. The story cites a new Forrester study, in which 81 percent of marketers said they would increase online budgets if research showed a relationship between that and increased sales, yet the vast majority of them were ignorant of the many studies that - without known exception - show just that. It may be that in the short-term, the cultural and structural barriers to allowing online media to take over as a primary marketing force may be even greater than business self interest.