Advertising, Return on Investment

Return on investment (ROI) is a methodological concept aimed at making business spending accountable. Maximizing profits is the ultimate goal of business at the corporate level, and ROI is a measurement tool used to quantify whether the revenues produced by an investment or a number of investments are more than the amount invested. In advertising, ROI takes into consideration the costs of planning, creating, and running the advertising campaign versus the revenue it generates. This entry discusses the importance of ROI in advertising and how it is assessed, including methodologies for determining ROI in interactive media advertising.

Although advertising alone rarely creates sales, like any marketing function, it must demonstrate a contribution to profits. If expenditures for ad campaigns are not made financially accountable, then advertising ...