Assessing advertising dfficiency: Does the Internet play a role?

This research focuses on a major concern for marketers addressing the claims of inefficiency of spending on advertising. We examine whether the Internet can help increase overall advertising efficiency. Using a sample from the Spanish automobile industry, we combine a nonparametric method-Data Envelopment Analysis-with recent important insights from statistics and econometrics studies, and find that online advertising improves the efficiency levels and that this effect is more pronounced in the long-term temporal framework. © 2010 American Academy of Advertising. All rights reserved.