AdRelevance Report Reveals Wide Variety in Internet Ad Sizes and Prices

Media Metrix Subsidiary Reveals That Targeted Reference And Technology Sites Are Most Expensive While Mass Market Search Engines Rank At Lower End of Price Range

SEATTLE - December 20, 1999 - As the number of ad-supported websites proliferate on the Internet, advertisers are seeing a wide variation in ad formats and rate card prices across all site genres. That's the latest finding from Media Metrix subsidiary AdRelevance Inc., an innovator in Internet advertising measurement and intelligent ad tracking technology. The company today released a report, titled "A Survey of Online Ad Dimensions and Rate Card Prices," which examines the prevalence, distribution and cost of online ad formats. Download PDF (Get Acrobat Reader).

The results of the survey, according to AdRelevance Vice President of Media Research Charles Buchwalter, demonstrate that a wide variety of alternative ad dimensions are emerging as mainstream standards alongside full banner ads.

"Fewer than 20 percent of sites rely exclusively on the traditional 468x60 pixel banner ad," said Buchwalter. "Of the eight standard IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) ad types, micro buttons, short buttons and medium buttons are seeing a significant increase in popularity."

As part of the survey, AdRelevance polled 115 of the Web's most highly trafficked, popular and influential sites spanning 21 different content genres from verticals like health and fitness to broadly themed portals and search engines. Information collected from the participants was then augmented with data from the AdRelevance Service that details where each ad dimension appears on the Web (see Table A).

Table A Percentage of Sites Offering Each Ad Dimension
Advertisement	Dimension (pixels)	Percentage of Sites
Full Banner	468 x 60	95%
Half Banner	234 x 72	36%
Short Banner	392 x 72	15%
Vertical Banner	120 x 240	7%
Tall Button	125 x 125	3%
Medium Button	120 x 90	36%
Short Button	120 x 60	56%
Micro Button	88 x 31	48%
Other	n/a	27%

The survey also found that while rate card prices for full banner ads could vary by as much as nearly two thousand percent, the difference was generally consistent with site genre. Thus community sites, at the lower end of the range, had a minimum cost of $5 per thousand impressions whereas some technology verticals charged over $90 per thousand for access to more targeted audiences (see Table B).

Table B
Rate Variation by Genre for Full Banner Ad

"As variable as ad prices may sometimes seem to advertisers, standards are definitely beginning to emerge among similar sites" said Buchwalter. "While ad prices will continue to vary between site genres, we believe that increased competition will narrow price spreads within each genre itself."

AdRelevance Intelligence Reports
AdRelevance Intelligence Reports are released monthly and are designed to provide customers, news media, and industry watchers with a timely perspective on the rapidly changing landscape of online advertising.

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.

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 company also provides a "cross industry" category to allow users to compare goods and services across all of the industries listed above.

The AdRelevance Technology
The AdRelevance Service is powered by the company's proprietary Online Media Network Intelligent Agent (OMNIAC™) technology. The innovative technology systematically combs the commercial universe of the Web searching for and capturing detailed data about advertising banners, promotions, sponsorships, text links and rich media 24 hours a day. Once captured, the data is warehoused, classified, statistically analyzed and correlated to AdRelevance's extensive Web traffic data. 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, which was purchased by Excite in 1997.

About AdRelevance
AdRelevance, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Metrix, Inc. (NASDAQ: MMXI), the pioneer and leader in Internet and digital media measurement. Founded in 1998, the company's intelligent agent technology combs over 2,000 Web sites daily and evaluates 40 million page views monthly to provide comprehensive and in-depth advertising tracking information. Using the Ad Relevance 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, message, industry, location, technology and creative. More information on the company and an interactive demonstration of its service is available at www.adrelevance.com or by calling 1-888-649-6540.