Although the adoption of real-time syncing services – that is, services that synchronize search engine and television ads – is rising, there is still limited evidence about their effectiveness. Real-time syncing can only increase revenues if television and search advertising interact.
To document the existence and sign of this interaction, we ran a field experiment that randomized the presence of branded text and shopping search ads across geographic regions during the execution of a television advertising campaign. The results show that the elasticity of website visits to television advertising is 10.2% higher when text ads are enabled (vs. paused). This elasticity is 7.8% higher when both text and shopping ads are enabled (vs. paused). Television ads significantly decrease the conversion rate, but enabling shopping ads attenuates this decrease by 61.3%.
These results show that search and television ads interact, which is necessary for a real-time syncing strategy to increase revenues. Because the interactions occur at different stages of the path to purchase, we run a revenue analysis to assess the implications for real-time syncing. The analysis indicates that a real-time syncing strategy would have led the focal firm to increase its revenues by up to 8.5% compared with strategies that do not coordinate search and television ads.
Ivan Guitart is a Professor of Marketing. His research focuses on improving advertising decisions across digital and traditional channels. In recent years, his studies have focused on television advertising, banner advertising, social media advertising and email marketing.
His research has appeared in international journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the International Journal of Research in Marketing. He joined Emlyon Business School in 2018. He received his PhD from IESE Business School, Spain. He also holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in engineering from Universidad Católica, Chile.
He currently serves in the board of directors of Fundación América por la Infancia, a company with social purpose based in Latin America.
The seminar will be held in English.
Major information: Daniela Bolzani (daniela.bolzani@unibo.it).