Advertising research is a specialized form of marketing research conducted to improve the efficiency of advertising.

1879 - N. W. Ayer conducts custom research in an attempt to win the advertising business of Nichols-Shepard Co., a manufacturer of agricultural machinery.

1895 - Harlow Gale of the University of Minnesota mails questionnaires to gather opinions about advertising from the public.

1900s - George B. Waldron conducts qualitative research for Mahin’s Advertising Agency.

1910s - 1911 can be considered the year marketing research becomes an industry. That year, J. George Frederick leaves his position as editor of Printer’s Ink to begin his research company, the Business Bourse with clients such as General Electric and the Texas Co. Also in 1911, Kellogg Co.’s ad manager, R. O. Eastman creates the Association of National Advertisers which is now known as the Association of National Advertising Managers. The group’s first project is a postcard questionnaire to determine magazine readership. The results introduce the concept of duplication of circulation. In 1916, R. O. Eastman starts his own company, the Eastman Research Bureau which boasts clients such as Cosmopolitan, Christian Herald, and General Electric.

Nigel Hollis (born 1958) is an author, analyst, researcher, speaker, and commentator on marketing. He is the author of The Global Brand: How to create and develop lasting brand value in the world market published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2008, and is the Executive Vice President of market research agency, Millward Brown.

Hollis contributed a chapter to Martin Lindstrom's 2005 book BRAND Sense, in which Lindstrom described research that was designed by Hollis and conducted by Millward Brown specifically for the book. Hollis also contributed a comparable chapter to Lindstrom's 2003 book BRANDchild.

Designed by Rex Briggs, then head of research at HotWired, with the technical support of HotWired staff including Joshua Grossnickle and Oliver Raskin, HotWired used some of Millward Brown measurement scales. But the methodology differed significantly from brand tracking, for which Millward Brown was known. Hollis was instrumental in getting HotWired to work with Millward Brown, and this 1996 landmark study of online advertising, proving that banner ads could have a branding effect before clickthrough is noted as the first study of its kind