Method of determining the effect of internet advertisement on offline commercial activity

A method of evaluating the commercial effects of Internet-based communication, comprising:

• generating a sample of offline customers;
• for each customer in the sample, attempting to determine an email address;
• generating an email list of the determined email addresses;
• assigning a unique customer identifier to each customer on the email list;
• transmitting a promotional email including the unique customer identifier to the determined email addresses;
• recording user online activity in response to the promotional email, including associating a user device cookie with the unique customer identifier;
• and
• recording offline purchasing activity for each customer, including associating the unique customer identifier with the offline purchasing activity.

A method of evaluating the commercial effects of Internet-based communication, comprising:

• a commercial entity generating a sample of offline customers;
• for each customer in the sample, attempting to determine an email address;
• generating an email list of the determined email addresses;
• assigning a unique identifier to each customer on the email list;
• transmitting a promotional email including the unique identifier to the determined email addresses;
• a second entity recording user online activity in response to the promotional email, including associating a user device cookie with the unique customer identifier;
• and
• recording subsequent offline purchasing activity for each customer, including associating the subsequent offline purchasing activity with the cookie.