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Many have long suspected that the tools used to measure return on investment that hold sway over many marketing decisions give digital media short shrift. A new study by seven of the biggest packaged-goods companies, joined by Nielsen, Facebook and Google, appears to prove it.

The last two stand to benefit from the findings of the Digital Media Consortium study, which finds marketing-mix models underestimate ROI from Facebook ads by as much as 48% and from Google search ads by as much as 39%. Even though Google search ROI was underestimated, the study found credit for about 25% of sales attributed to paid search should be shared with TV, print or other digital media that led people to search in the first place.

The study backs findings of a prior ComScore study that clicks have little to do with offline sales of packaged-goods brands. Using impressions rather than clicks to measure digital campaigns was far more predictive of real-world results and increased the estimated ROI of Facebook advertising by as much as 75%, according to Ross Link, Nielsen’s president of global marketing return on investment solutions.

Continue reading at AdAge.com