In my role of managing our online development projects and initiatives, I’m always on the lookout for best practices and credible research that indicates how people use the web and the role of online in their purchase behavior. Just last week, the Online Publishers Association (OPA) released some findings of a study that explored the impact of advertising on branded content web sites.

Essentially, the OPA’s report, Improving Ad Performance Online: The Impact of Advertising on Branded Content Sites, found that across many advertising categories, branded content sites consistently provide greater impact than industry norms, portals and ad networks.

In their press release, OPA President Pam Horan said, “It’s an absolute fact with online advertising: environment matters. In nearly every category measured, ad effectiveness scores on branded content sites were numerically higher than on the Web in general, on portals or on ad networks. Whether it’s the trust they engender or the audiences they attract, branded content sites deliver better advertising results.”

Key findings of the study include:

• Ads on branded content sites significantly more likely to increase message association (20% better) and purchase intent for affluent audiences (24% better)
• Ads on content sites provide double the brand favourability and purchase intent than advertising placed with ad networks
• Consumer packaged goods advertising on branded content sites get a 26% lift in purchase intent over MarketNorms*
• 18-34 year olds are more responsive to ads on branded content sites: they are 33% more likely to form favorable opinions about advertised brands than when viewing ads on portals.
• Sponsorships on branded content sites achieve greater lift than sponsorships on portals, 36% more effective

*The study’s research method/objectives utilized Dynamic Logic MarketNorms data, essentially, a database of scores that looks at the performance of online ads and is meant to represent the Internet as a whole (the data benchmarks online ad campaigns from over 3,900 AdIndex surveys on more than 6 million people, evaluating over 163,000 creatives across a dozen+ industries and hundreds of sites.)

To view the OPA Press Release you can go here, or visit them online at www.online-publishers.org.

To view the study’s findings, you can download the .pdf version here.