6 Promotion and purchase: Measuring effectiveness
Pierre Berthon (Bentley College and USA)
Introduction
The Web has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years–perhaps significantly, in the influential business press and popular culture. Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) appear in many advertisements, and Business Week devotes a page to listing the URLs of its advertisers.[1]
Reporting on the Web is currently fascinating to general readers and listing URLs is helpful to consumers. However, systematic research is required to reveal the true nature of commerce on the Web. This is true particularly from the perspective of the Web in marketing communication, and especially so for the Web as an advertising medium or tool. In this chapter, we provide a brief overview of the Web as a phenomenon of the late 20th century; then we explore the Web as an advertising medium, using established theoretical models of consumer and industrial buying behavior; finally, we develop a model of Web conversion efficiency–its power to move the customer from being a passive Internet surfer to an interactive user of the medium.
The Internet and the World Wide Web
Cyberspace, or to give it its less clichéd name, the Internet (the net ), is a new medium based on broadcasting and publishing. However, unlike traditional broadcast media, it facilitates two-way communication between actors; unlike most personal selling (telemarketing being the obvious exception), it is not physically face to face, but neither is it time-bound. The medium possesses interactivity–it has the facility for individuals and organizations to communicate directly with one another regardless of distance or time. The Web has introduced a much broader audience to the net. Furthermore, it allows anyone (organization or individual) to have a 24-hour-a-day presence on the Internet.
The Web is not a transient phenomenon. It warrants serious attention by business practitioners. Statistics support this, although one astute observer recommends strongly that all estimates be made in pencil only, as the growth is so rapid. No communication medium or electronic technology, not even fax or personal computers, has ever grown as quickly.
An electronic trade show and a virtual flea market
While most academics and practitioners might be starting to think about, and even acknowledge, the importance of a Web site as a marketing communication tool, to date little systematic research has been conducted into the nature and effectiveness of this medium. Most of the work done so far has been of a descriptive nature–“what the medium is,” using such surrogate measures as the size of the Web audience to indicate its potential. While these endeavors might add to our general understanding, they do not address more specific issues of concern, such as the communication objectives that advertisers might have, and how they expect Web sites to achieve these objectives. Neither do these studies assess the effectiveness of this new m