ROI for Online Display

Per AdAge.com, Google has developed a metric for branding/awareness of online display ads. The tool solves two problems:

1. Click is an unreliable source of measurement because most of the clicks are performed by a small percentage of online users; and,
   
2. Search gets the credit for the purchase/conversion, yet many other ads may have contributed to consumers behavior to search.

The product is new and certainly has limitations - it only works if the consumer has installed the Google toolbar, for example. It's a great start, however, and further research can determine if the users who install the toolbar are vastly different from those who don't.

The industry has relied heavily on click-thru rates and display has not gotten the credit it may (or may not) deserve.

I'm excited to see how this new tool quantifies the impact of display ads to transactions.