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Marketing is required to use its funds measurably to increase sales. As the Internet offers attractive tools for efficient new customer acquisition, more and more funds are being withdrawn from traditional advertising every year and invested in search engine and display advertising. Each of these two online instruments is efficient on its own, but they only develop their full effect when used together.

According to Media Focus, seven percent of Swiss advertising expenditure, or CHF 450 million, was spent on online advertising in 2010: CHF 159 million on display advertising and CHF 125 million on search engine advertising (AdWords); the remaining funds flowed into advertisements on portals and affiliate programs. An AdWords campaign is undisputedly the most efficient instrument for acquiring new customers. When searching for information, AdWords are not seen as advertising, but as helpful support.

However, AdWords campaigns are very often seen as a stand-alone measure, although the information search is the last step in the acquisition chain (attention - interest - information search). AdWords create attention for the offer during the information search. Due to the intensive use of search engines, AdWords generate conversions per se. However, they cannot trigger attention or interest in the offer from potential new customers. This is reserved for display ads.

The success of search engine advertising is measured based on the cost per conversion: What did a lead or a purchase cost in relation to the spend? Various studies, such as the "brand to perform!" study by Tomorrow Focus AG, show that display ads have an impact on the ROI of search engine advertising: Not only do they achieve a branding effect, they also increase direct website traffic as well as search engine traffic. And not only immediately, but also with a time delay. Display ads therefore ensure that consumers who feel addressed by the advertisement will sooner or later also search for the offer in the search engines. The more people specifically search for an offer or a brand in the search engines, the more attractive the costs per conversion become. Multi-channel tracking makes it possible to analyze the advertising impact across the various channels in order to optimize their efficiency.

Year after year, we see rising CPC (cost per click) prices for AdWords. Cleverly set up, display ads achieve a lucrative side effect. If the text is based on key terms that are as specific as possible, the consumer's interest is drawn to cost-effective keywords. This in turn has a positive influence on the cost per conversion.

Imre Sinka, Dotpulse web agency,www.dotpulse.ch