comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for April 2011
Earth Day Accelerates Growth at Green Sites
Royal Wedding Drives Interest in Entertainment News Sites
RESTON, Va., May 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. web activity at the top online properties for April 2011 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Green sites saw their second consecutive month of strong growth as Americans looked for ways to celebrate Earth Day (April 22) and cut back on fuel costs. Incentive sites were also popular in April, helping Americans stretch their dollars with promotions, daily deals and free samples, and the Royal Wedding drove gains at Entertainment News sites.
“More than 26 million Americans celebrated Earth Day this year by visiting green websites,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “With gas prices climbing past $4.00 a gallon, Americans have a greater incentive to be thinking green to provide some economic relief.”
Green Sites Sprout for Earth Day
The Green category held on to the #1 spot in April, posting an even stronger gain of 32 percent. More than 26 million Americans visited the category during the month, with Shine Green taking the top spot with 7.9 million visitors (up 364 percent). Planet Green Sites came in second with 3.3 million visitors (up 15 percent), followed by Care2.com with 2.0 million (up 11 percent) and Mother Nature Network with 1.8 million (up 24 percent). EnergyGuide.com grew 6 percent to 918,000 visitors, while EPA.gov saw 916,000 (up 10 percent).
Read More: comScore
Ad Choices Update
For the past several months, Media6Degrees has been rolling out the Ad Choices icon in support of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self Regulatory program. At this point, we’re pleased to announce that the icon is being used on over 90% of our campaigns.
Given our wide adoption, we wanted to share some details on how users are responding to this new message:
- To date, we’ve served almost a billion impressions that included the icon.
- People who see the icon click through to expand the overlay at a rate of less than 0.005%.
- The overall opt-out rate is 0.0001%.
- Of the people who clicked on the icon to expand it, 3% eventually choose to opt-out.
These numbers tell us a couple of things. First, marketers are lining up behind the program. Our customers are top brands that recognize the value of informing users of their choices regarding advertising. They should be commended for supporting this initiative.
Second, despite some sensationalism in the press and attention from Washington, actual users don’t appear to be that concerned about targeted advertising based on behavior. Perhaps after years of getting targeted direct mail at their homes, which often contains very personal information, people have come to understand that targeted marketing is generally benign, and occasionally quite beneficial. Or perhaps they truly appreciate the value of receiving customized ads. Whichever it is, users are overwhelmingly forgoing the opportunity to opt out.
Read More: Media6Degrees
Lifecycle Management Becoming Ad Industry Focus
AudienceScience will officially release a lifecycle management and brand impact feature Wednesday for its data management platform created for media planners and buyers. The latest version of the AudienceScience Gateway DMP provides a better ability to collect and aggregate huge volumes of data from disparate sources, while maintaining privacy standards, according to the company.
The feature supports a fundamental shift in online target marketing, notes AudienceScience CEO Jeff Hirsch. Until now marketers used data management platforms per transaction or campaign, rather than to develop a long-term relationship with customers. It’s a shift in how data is being used, he says.
The lifecycle of a campaign spans from the consumer’s first interest in a product or service through the purchase process. Previously, AudienceScience had stored information for 12 weeks because the focus remained on immediate purchase intent items. Now brand marketers want a longer view of consumer activities.
Read More: MediaPost
Martini Media, NetSeer Team to Target Richest Audience Online
Deal paves road to personalized advertising to the most affluent consumers where they devote their time, energy and money
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Martini Media (www.martinimediainc.com), the digital platform that engages the $100K+ audience where they work and play most, will now target ads according to reader/viewer intent. The capability comes from a combination of in-house site data and a licensing deal with NetSeer (www.netseer.com), whose technology now lets publishers and advertisers see all the content on a Web page and understand the advertising environment it creates.
“This is a quantum leap for marketing,” said Skip Brand, CEO (http://bit.ly/dWT1FH) of Martini Media. “We can now target ads to the richest, hardest to reach people online the way they actually view media. And we can do it through the enthusiast sites proven to generate the greatest impact on brand awareness, preference and purchase.”
For example, Martini now will be able to distinguish contextually whether an individual page is the right environment for a yacht or auto or travel ad. NetSeer makes this possible through algorithms that determine a reader’s intent. “Bass” can mean music, fishing, or cooking; NetSeer technology spots the difference in context of surrounding content, so the opportunity is classified correctly. What’s more, the consistent classification assures that brand ads will be placed only in the most relevant environments.
Read More: BusinessWire
AdoTube Partners with FreeWheel to Increase Monetization of Premium Video Content
AdoTube has been working with FreeWheel and clients since March 2010, and has now been named as a FreeWheel Certified Partner.
AdoTube, a leading in-video advertising platform, has been named by video monetization technology company, FreeWheel, as one of its Certified Partners. This new level of partnership comes from continued collaboration between AdoTube and FreeWheel, who have teamed up to empower a number of clients with limitless monetization opportunities through leveraging AdoTube’s various in-stream ad formats and premium ad network in conjunction with FreeWheel’s flagship product, Monetization Rights Management®.
Certified Partner status further ensures that AdoTube has met a substantial set of criteria that allows FreeWheel to vouch for AdoTube’s technology and solutions. FreeWheel requires companies to fully adhere to industry standards set forth by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), as well as an additional set of FreeWheel-specified criteria.
“This program is a way for us to work with our valued partners like AdoTube to continue to strive for the best levels of support, integration, and operational excellence on behalf of our mutual clients,” said Brent Horowitz, VP, Business Development at FreeWheel. “The result should be higher standards and improved operations industry-wide.”
Read More: AdoTube
Joost Video Network Becomes Stand-alone Business Unit
Adconion Media Group plans to announce Thursday the spinoff of the Joost Video Network into a stand-alone business unit. The newly launched digital media company will provide premium branded solutions for advertisers and brand marketers seeking to target audiences with in-stream and in-banner video advertising.
Nick Higgins will lead the new unit as executive vice president. He previously held the position of head of global video at Adconion Media Group. Prior to joining Adconion, Higgins was at MSN, where he held several senior positions during the past 10 years.
Adconion acquired the assets-digital rights management, video player, and content distribution of Joost from ex-Skype founders in November 2009, and then launched the Joost Video Network in February 2010 across North America, Europe and Australia. Since then, Tyler Moebius, CEO of Adconion Media Group, says the company quadrupled revenue to $30 million and expects to triple digital growth in 2011, making it the largest global video player operating in more than seven countries.
Read More: MediaPost
InvestingChannel Seeing CPMs Increase Due To Targeted Offering Says CEO Desai
Nikesh Desai is Founder of InvestingChannel, a vertical ad network and publisher services company.
AdExchanger.com: How did the InvestingChannel begin? And how has the company pivoted since it was first started?
ND: We started this business for a couple of key reasons, amongst others:
1.The business was started as an advisory business designed to help financial media companies with their digital advertising revenue strategies. We quickly discovered that many of our clients required execution both on the ad sales and operations/optimization side and often lacked the resources, reach and expertise to effectively monetize their valuable audience.
2.With the ease of content creation and the resulting proliferation of sites, particularly in finance, along with the desire for independent, trusted content, online audiences have dispersed to niche sites to consume content rather than the larger ‘big brand’ destinations. These audiences are highly coveted and desirable for endemic and non endemic advertisers but because of the fragmentation, lack of ad infrastructure and size, it is extremely difficult for advertisers to find and target these largely unduplicated audiences The business insights we gained from our consulting business coupled with the power and growth of the long/mid tail audiences led to the creation of InvestingChannel.
Read More: AdExchanger
