Google Says YouTube Ads Deliver Better Return On Investment Than Their TV Counterparts

Advertisers are shuffling larger portions of their budgets over to the Internet, and as they do, Google is hoping they’ll spend a good portion of that allotment on YouTube. The tech giant shared a study that examined 56 brands and determined that, in 77% of cases, YouTube advertising delivered a higher return on investment (ROI) than TV advertising.

The brands measured in the study come from six different industry types. Google measured advertisements across eight European countries (the results were presented during Advertising Week Europe) between 2013 and 2016. In the end, it concluded that the majority of brands saw a bigger sales boost from their digital spend when compared to similar activity on TV.

Google’s claim about the effectiveness of digital advertising seems to jibe with current media buying trends. For several years now, multiple reports have predicted that the digital advertising sector would soon overtake its televised counterpart. One of the latest studies in that vein came from ZenithOptimedia, which in March 2016 projected 2017 as the year when the Internet would take over.

Google’s study, it should be said, was conducted by the tech company itself, so we should be cautious in drawing conclusions from the results. That being said, the research itself was carried out by at least four different firms, and it included multiple methodologies, according to Business Insider.

The more salient counter-argument doesn’t concern Google’s methods, but rather the importance of its results. Matt Hill of TV marketing body Thinkbox told The Guardian that Google’s study “misses the point.”. “The true value of TV advertising is not just its return on investment, but that it achieves the best return on investment at the highest levels of investment,” he said. “TV builds brands better than anything else and creates the most profit.”

No matter how much stock you put into the results of Google’s study, there is no doubt that YouTube will be excited to share its latest data with advertisers at its upcoming Brandcast. The video site’s yearly pitch will take place in New York on May 5th.