The Causal Model of Internet Advertising Effectiveness

Abstract

Internet has become the emerging fifth major media. The aim of this research is to demonstrate evidence-based Internet advertisement scenarios: the impacts, from dissimilar ”contents and types of webpage” and diverse ”presentation types of advertisement”, on five indexes of advertising effectiveness. 688 interviewees are convenient sampled on-site for the survey of the persuaded response to three phases of Internet advertising effectiveness-cognition, affection and action. Three interference variables, ”content involvement of webpage”, ”media users' behavior” and ”personal background information”, are brought into the study structure. The results are as follows: (1) ”contents and types of webpage” has significant impacts on advertisement clicking, memory effectiveness and general attitude toward the advertisement; (2) the influence on advertising effectiveness from ”presentation types of advertisement” is the most powerful of all influence factors; (3) Among six presentation types, the banner advertisement is identified as the most valuable for adoption while the animated ads advertisement are the most attractive but lacks for persuasion; (4) three interference variables, ”involvement”, ”media users' behavior” and ”age level” yield reciprocal influence on two causal models, ”contents and types of webpage → advertising effectiveness” and ”advertisement presentation types → advertising effectiveness”, respectively; (5) males are more likely persuaded by Internet advertisement into shopping online than females; and (6) the highly involved excel the lowly involved in advertisement clicking, memory effectiveness, the attitude toward the advertisement and toward the advertisement agent, and online shopping frequency; (7) both casual models, ”contents and types of webpage → advertising effectiveness” and ”advertisement presentation types → advertisement effectiveness”, are supported.