PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present an effectiveness conceptual framework to evaluate the overall performance of corporate advertising web sites towards the multiple advertising, promotional and relationship marketing objectives of their establishment. Specifically, communication, feedback and customer support policies are examined in order to identify their contribution in creating or influencing advertising “effects”.Design/methodology/approachData from a questionnaire‐based survey of 160 undergraduate and postgraduate students within the department of applied informatics are used to accomplish greater understanding of their perceptions and requirements towards the factors in question.FindingsFindings reveal significant dimensions of the participants' behaviour based on their actions, activities, preferences and intentions. Also, the outcomes show a great impact of the relationship marketing qualitative factors in question on specific advertising effectiveness indicators.Research limitations/implicationsThe stimulus materials are limited to two corporate advertising web sites. Further testing to a wider sample of advertising stimulus of different product categories is required.Practical implicationsEffectiveness measures provide to practitioners a factual demonstration of consumers' use and intended use regarding functions and features incorporated by corporate advertising web sites and enable the optimisation of their execution.Originality/valueThe paper introduces a new conceptual framework to support the contribution and significance of relationship marketing factors on the overall performance of corporate advertising web sites. This should be a useful approach for both academic researcher and practitioners.