Payback Australia: Full Report

Ebiquity, commissioned by ThinkTV in 2016 to carry out the Payback Australia study, was given three years’ worth of raw sales and campaign data by 21 advertisers with a collective spend of over $500 million in 2016. Ebiquity then used econometric modelling* to generate a series of findings, including:

• Media’s investment paid back for all four sectors, generating an average sales ROI of $1.30 for every dollar invested by FMCG participants, $5.90 for Automotive, $1.80 for E-Commerce and $2 for Finance participants.
• TV emerged as the most efficient media channel, delivering almost twice the sales uplift relative to media spend than Search and Radio, and circa five times more sales uplift relative to media spend than Out-of-Home, Online Video and Online Display Media.
• TV has the strongest retention rate** (the prolonged or lagged effect of advertising on consumer purchase behavior) of all media, followed by Out-of-Home, Print, Online Display, Radio, Search and Online Video in that order, with TV’s retention rate, at 68%, almost twice as high as Out-of-Home, at 36%.
• TV generated by far the greatest return on investment by sales in FMCG, Automotive and Finance but trailed other media in the E-Commerce category – where Search proved to be a critical sales component.
• Ebiquity concluded that participants in the Finance category had over-invested in Online Display on average, which was a large part of their combined media spend but which generated the lowest ROI.
• Online Video however, successfully paid back in the Finance category, generating $1.10 of sales uplift for every dollar invested.