Google Study: Print Ads Drive Online Purchases

By Marisa Peacock | Published Jun 11, 2008

Think about the last time you saw an ad in a newspaper and went online to learn more about it. Come to think of it, think about the last time you read a print newspaper. New research suggests it's more common than you think. Actually, it's 50 percent more common.

According to a study, commissioned by Google, there are people who research products and services after seeing them advertised in newspapers. Even more startling is that among these people, two-thirds (67 percent) of them use the Internet to find more information. Of that group, nearly 70 percent of consumers actually make a purchase following their additional research.

Not only does this group of respondents read the newspaper a lot, they seem to trust its content more. The study showed that nearly half of respondents (48 percent) said that seeing a product in the newspaper after seeing it online would make them trust the product more and be more likely to purchase it. More than half of that group (52 percent) said they would be more likely to purchase the product.

Overall, nearly 30 percent of Internet-using newspaper readers went online to research at least one product that they saw in the newspaper (on average, they researched nine).

So what to make of this survey? On one hand it's an indication that newspapers and their advertising are still alive and well. On the other hand, it indicates that the Internet lacks the integrity to stand alone as the sole repository for product information.

Yet, it may suggest that newspaper and Web work best when working together.

If in fact newspaper advertising drives Web traffic as strongly as this survey suggests, there may be real benefits of getting your message in front of consumers multiple times, on the Web and in the newspaper.