TV Spending Drives Website Traffic, Revenues: Study

Websites that advertise on television draw more traffic and ultimately more revenue. Those were two of the conclusions drawn from “What’s Driving Digital,” a new study of Nielsen Ad Views data , commissioned by the Cabletelevsion Advertising Bureau, which finds that TV promotion serves as the primary driver of traffic to websites. Moreover, digital players that spend more money on TV ads, generally benefit from higher revenues. The study indicated that the 75 so-called, largest pure-play Internet brands allocated more than $4 billion on TV advertising in 2013, a jump of 37% from 2009 spending levels. Some 85% of this group showed a direct correlation between TV spending and traffic. The 38 advertisers that spent more averaged one-third more unique visitors, while the 25 advertisers that spent less averaged 22% fewer unique visitors. To that end, the study indicated that Priceline cut its TV spending by 26% during the period, and ended up with 24% fewer unique visitors. Conversely, Ancestry.com upped its TV advertising ante by 22% and registered a 21% rise in uniques.