NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Monitoring ad spend on a monthly basis
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Monitoring ad spend on a monthly basis
Cliff Kurtzman (cliff_at_tenagra.com)
Thu, 26 Mar 1998 09:27:21 -0600 (CST)
William Reeve asked:
>I note with interest the AdTrack service provided in Jupiter
>Communication's WebTrack newsletter. AdTrack, which covers
>US sites only, shows the top 40 US web advertisers, top 40
>US web publishers, major US web advertisers in each sector,
>and so forth. It's monthly, I believe.
>
>I am contemplating providing a similar service in the UK and
>I was wondering if people could comment on
>
>a) how useful this service is in the US
>b) how accurate the data is, or the nature of any shortcomings
>c) any obvious omissions, 'nice-to-have's, and so forth
>d) any similar services, particularly in the UK
I've always felt that these numbers are extremely flawed. Good perhaps for
gauging long term trends, but fantasy island if you are looking for real
numbers on real sites, or even rankings between sites and advertisers.
There are two primary users of these reports. Some of those companies
listed as the top sites in terms of ad sales use that fact in their general
promotions and sales pitches to potential advertisers, although I'm not
quite sure I understand why they would consider such a thing to be a
selling point for them. Print publications also like to publish lists, so
you often see these lists republished in the trade publications, usually
without qualification as to the validity of the numbers. This means
additional exposure for the ranked sites.
As I recall, the last AdTrack report I saw computed its numbers by visiting
web sites and trying to measure the possible number of impressions being
delivered and then by multiplying those numbers by the rate card CPM for
the site. This is terribly inaccurate, because many ads are done on trade,
as part of a discounted package, pro bono, as part of a print/online joint
buy, or at rates off the rate card. And it is virtually impossible for
this type of measurement procedure to accurately count the number of
impressions that are really delivered.
The studies commissioned by the IAB seem to be most accurate, because they
actually get real sales figures from some of the publishers. However, they
only report the numbers in aggregate rather than on a site by site basis,
and appear to miss a number of publishers, perhaps a truly significant
number of publishers.
I base this purely on self-experience. I can't recall Tenagra's properties
ever being included anyone's study of online advertising spending or
revenues. Tenagra sells advertising on several of its properties, and the
revenues we generate probably don't put us in the top 40, but they are
certainly not trivial either. One of our online publishing properties has
been profitable for over two years now, and supports the livelihoods of a
good number of people. We are not exactly a low profile company within the
Internet industry. Yet if we have never been included in these studies, I
have to ask myself how many others are not being include either, how
significantly this skews the results that are published, and who is being
left out of the top sites listing just because the people conducting the
study didn't include them and because the methodologies they are using to
assess the sites are so flawed?
In any event, I believe that Michael Tchong's Iconocast newsletter (
http://www.iconocast.com/ ) often provides some good commentary on these
reports as they are released.
--Cliff Kurtzman
President and CEO
The Tenagra Corporation
http://www.tenagra.com
281/480-6300
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