Nearly nine years after advertising first appeared on the Internet, marketers are starting to better understand the Internet's potential for creating a more impactful media mix. As a solus medium, the Web has also made great strides in being recognized for its effectiveness in achieving both branding and direct response campaign objectives.

The road to maturity was not easy, though, especially when the salad days of unlimited venture capital and stratospheric stock valuations were followed by the biggest flat tire in modern financial market history. Despite the equity markets' harsh response, consumers kept coming to the Web in increasing numbers for updates on foreign affairs, basketball playoff re-caps, tips on home remodelling, the side effects of prescription drugs and child-rearing advice.

The Internet proved to be resilient but this hardiness wasn't enough to convince many advertisers to promote their products and services in the medium.

During the early years of commercial advertising on the Web, effectiveness research focused on advertising impact within the Internet alone. Direct response value became apparent as advertisers and agencies tracked clicks, leads and online retail sales. Following a few isolated studies, an explosion of branding research after 1998 clearly demonstrated that Web banner advertising was capable of moving the needle for key branding metrics.

While Web-specific studies continued to provide mounting evidence about the Internet's ability to build brands and sell, advertisers wanted to know how the medium compared with traditional channels like TV, print and radio. Today, media mix issues are a hot topic and beg the questions: How much should I be budgeting for online advertising? What's the relative contribution of the Web within the media mix towards achieving objectives? How does Internet creative integrate with TV and with magazines?

To date, most cross-media research involving the Internet has been fielded through a series of studies conducted by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). This body of work has focused on demonstrating how reallocating a portion of spend from traditional media to the Internet can drive key branding metrics more efficiently.

The core premise is that gains in the advertising effectiveness of traditional media (such as brand awareness, ad awareness and purchase intent) eventually reach a point of diminishing returns as people repeatedly see the same message. This is why media like TV and magazines tend to peak relatively early because they receive the lion's share of media dollars.

Recent studies suggest that increasing the Internet's share of the media budget can help to move branding metrics beyond previous levels, by reaching people that may not have been adequately exposed to a more traditional media mix and that additional impact can be gained through cross-media synergy.

The reported lifts in branding metrics resulting from increased Internet investment are derived from simulations or estimates of campaign impact at higher levels of online ad spend. These projections are based on the monitored relationship between ad frequency and effectiveness during the actual campaign, when the level of spend on Internet media is low.

People exposed to five or more Web ads were most affected by the banner creative but represented a small portion of the target that saw any Internet advertising. Boosting Web spend increased overall Internet reach while building frequency levels across a wider group of people exposed to Web advertising, resulting in an improved branding effect.

Top line results of three of the IAB studies show an average branding lift of 20%+ when the Internet share of budget moves into the double-digit range.