An Experimental Study of the Relationship between Online Engagement and Advertising Effectiveness

We discuss consumer engagement with a website, provide a systematic approach to examining the types of engagement produced by specific experiences, and show that engagement with the media context increases advertising effectiveness. Based on experiments using measurement scales involving eight different online experiences, we advance two types of engagement with online media - Personal and Social-Interactive Engagement. Our results show that both types are positively associated with advertising effectiveness. Moreover, Social-Interactive Engagement, which is more uniquely characteristic of the web as a medium, is shown to affect advertising after controlling for Personal Engagement. Our results offer online companies and advertisers new metrics and advertising strategies. (C) 2009 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.