Inaugural Report From AdRelevance Reveals Growing Acceptance of Online Advertising by Top Brands

61 of Advertising Age's Top 100 Megabrands Advertised Online During August

SEATTLE - October 25, 1999 - AdRelevance Inc., an innovator in Internet advertising measurement and intelligent ad tracking technology, today launched a free monthly program called AdRelevance Intelligence Reports. The reports take advantage of current data collected by the company and provide insight into the rapidly changing landscape of online advertising.

The inaugural AdRelevance Intelligence report, entitled "Web Advertising Goes Mainstream," examines recent online advertising activity among top brands including Amazon.com, eBay, MSN and VISA, offering a detailed look at activity by industry, company, impressions and creative. The report, which is designed for customers, news media and industry watchers, was posted this morning on the AdRelevance Web site at http://www.adrelevance.com.

The report reveals that 61 of Advertising Age's Top 100 Megabrands advertised online during the month of August, led by companies in the Web media, retail and financial services industries. Some of the report's key findings include the following:

• Web Media (Rank #1 with 36 percent share):  Within the Web media industry, major portals including Netscape, Yahoo! and MSN represented 44 percent of advertising impressions, with 80 percent of their respective banner impressions occurring on their own properties.

• Retail (Rank #2 with 21 percent share):  Amazon.com and eBay dominated retail with 120 million impressions each, though it appears that Amazon.com paid twice as much on media buys for its banner campaigns.

• Financial Services (Rank #3 with 16 percent share):  VISA accounted for the lion's share of financial service ads online with more than 270 million banner impressions valued at nearly $6.5 million.

A detailed breakdown of advertising activity by industry measuring percentage of impressions, unique creative and number of companies advertising is as follows (totals differ from 100 percent due to rounding):

	Impressions	Creative	Companies
Web Media	35.8%	30.1%	29.9%
Retail	20.9%	21.1%	26.5%
Financial Services	16.0%	13.3%	11.3%
Travel	6.4%	4.2%	6.3%
Hardware & Electronics	4.7%	5.3%	5.7%
Consumer Goods	2.4%	3.6%	8.2%
Telecommunications	2.2%	3.7%	4.0%
Automotive	2.0%	4.1%	1.9%
Software	2.0%	3.6%	6.3%
Other	7.4%	11.2%	NA

"Our current report dispels the latest buzz that many top companies are resisting the Internet as a viable advertising medium," said AdRelevance President and CEO Will Hodgman. "It's amazing what we've discovered beyond just the seasonal ups and downs by tracking Internet advertising 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

AdRelevance Intelligence reports are compiled by the company's Media Research Group, who analyze data collected from AdRelevance's proprietary ad tracking service. Each member of the team brings industry-specific expertise to their analyses as well as an understanding of marketing strategies and Internet technology.

"Our media team is made up of researchers in the areas of interactive media trends, statistical analysis, and new media classification methods," said Charlie Buchwalter, vice president of media research at AdRelevance. "While our key focus lies in providing online advertising intelligence, the AdRelevance Intelligence Reports provide added insight for our clients and the industry as a whole."

Using AdRelevance
The AdRelevance Service tracks where, when, how and how much Web marketers and their competitors are advertising online. AdRelevance provide Web advertisers and marketers with the ability to plan proactive online campaigns and make smarter media buying decisions. The company tracks competitive online advertising data for nine industries including automotive, consumer goods, financial services, hardware and electronics, retail, software, telecommunications, travel and Web media.

The service enables clients to quickly and easily run reports that illustrate competitive advertising activity by a range of criteria including advertiser, product, industry, Web site location, creative, time period and technology. Reports can also be analyzed by impression, unique ads and rate card-equivalent spending.

The AdRelevance Technology
The AdRelevance Service is powered by the company's proprietary Online Media Network Intelligent Agent (OMNIAC ) technology. This technology systematically searches commercial sites on the Web and captures detailed data about advertising banners, promotions, sponsorships, text links and rich media 24 hours a day, seven days a week. By evaluating over 2,000 Web sites and sub-sites daily and 40 million page views per month, the AdRelevance Service provides in-depth advertising and tracking information unavailable anywhere else. The OMNIAC technology was developed by the company's core development team, including engineers best known for developing the MetaCrawler search technology currently licensed to Go2Net and Jango.

About AdRelevance
Founded in 1998, AdRelevance, Inc. was acquired in October 1999 by Media Metrix, Inc. (NASDAQ:MMXI), the pioneer and leader in Internet and digital media measurement, in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at $65.7 million. AdRelevance, which is based in Seattle, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Metrix. Using the AdRelevance Service, advertisers gain access to up-to-date intelligence about their competitors' online marketing communications programs, enabling them to quickly and easily compare and report information by a wide range of criteria including advertiser, product, industry, location, technology and creative content. More information on the company and a free trial of the service is available at www.adrelevance.com or by calling 1-888-649-6540.