Unilever, Aimia, Sainsbury’s, i2c, Nielsen and the IAB have teamed up to measure the ROI impact of digital display advertising in a year-long, in-depth study.

This is good news.

As digital display advertising placement prices have grown over the past few years, clean data on the actual impact of such advertising has been tough to come by. This has created an information asymmetry between those selling online ad spaces and those buying them, an information asymmetry which had begun to make a lot of powerful people and brands uncomfortable.

The Unilever study, which involved testing digital display advertising for three Unilever brands – Persil, Magnum and Maille – and two Nestle brands – Nescafe and Haagen Dazs using programmatic ads on popular websites like Mail Online and The Guardian, yielded ROI data that outperformed most industry estimates.

This is also good news.

Early data from the study reaffirms what most in the digital advertising space and the brands which utilise that space instinctively knew all along: 

Online Digital Display Advertising works. 

Digital display advertising as it currently manifests online produces positive ROI for brands using the traditional digital sales funnel.

For brands this answers a question which has plagued the industry for decades: Are digital display ads worth investing in?

To this question, we can now offer a definitive "Yes". 

But that is not the end of the story. In fact, it is really just the beginning...

Digital Display Ads Work. Now What?

The UK’s Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) compiled previous data which estimated the ROI for digital display advertising at £.91 on the pound. Discouraging numbers, to say the least.

The new Unilever study, on the other hand, estimates ROI for programmatic digital display ads at £1.47 on the pound. A much more robust and encouraging figure.

Unilever certainly thinks so.

The transnational consumer goods giant has put its money where its mouth is, pledging to move more of its advertising budget onto online digital display ads over the coming year, even as its joint year long study continues.

But while such ROI numbers are indeed encouraging, many in the martech and adtech world (who already knew that digital display ads worked some time ago) have begun to formulate follow up questions.

Now that the debate over whether or not digital display ads work is over, we asked, can we get back to the task of figuring out how to make them work better? Can we take a look at whether the traditional digital marketing sales funnel and online purchase journey are even relevant anymore?

Sure, a 147% ROI is good, but many currently operating in this digital marketing sphere believe that figure can (and should) be much higher still, provided a few improvements are made on the way such advertising is delivered:

• Improved customer experiences can allow brands to position themselves to become customer favourites in online shopping, win new customers, and open up new revenue streams.
• Interactive, shoppable ads can help move brands, and digital display advertising itself, forward, shortcutting the traditional sales funnel and online purchase journey to make the most of what digital channels have to offer.
• New and innovative approaches can fill existing platform display ad space even as new and previously unforeseen spaces open up on those very same platforms.

As data on the performance of digital display ads continues to trickle in, for many the wheels are already in motion.

Marketing technology is developing new ways to optimise display ads, improve customer experience, and streamline the online purchase journey.

And brands are buying in.

via GIPHY

Which makes sense.

Anyone paying attention can see that the advertising world has barely scratched the surface of the potential for digital display advertising. True, the internet’s social media giants: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, have yet to get the monetisation formula right. But that is changing as we speak.

Instagram recently introduced shoppable organic posts, which allow companies to augment their photos with product information and links to buy the items on their sites. In all likelihood, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat won’t be far behind.

While many believe that Instagram’s program doesn’t go far enough to shorten the online sales funnel and streamline the online purchase journey (you still have to visit the website of the brand associated with the shoppable Instagram image), it does represent a significant industry step in the right direction.

In reality, it is only a matter of time before this slow crawl toward widespread shoppability and ease of use for consumers becomes the dominant force in the online advertising industry as a whole.

The market demands it.