• by October 5, 2000

This may be one of the first of its kind. NetZero, one of the leading ad-supported Internet access providers, has launched a program it claims will - ready for this? - guarantee a 33% percent increase in your site traffic. The 33% increase in site traffic guarantee is subject to restrictions, but will apply to campaigns from certain new advertisers that begin between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2000. If the increase is not realized during that period, NetZero will give the advertiser an additional 33% of purchased impressions spread over the following month.

Sound risky? How can a company guarantee such an increase? According to Rusty Taragan, general manager of NetZero's market research division, the percentage they chose for the guarantee is not arbitrary. "After reviewing reports from past campaigns, we found that 90% of those advertisers experienced at least a 33% increase in Web site traffic. We want to demonstrate to advertisers and the industry at large- with hard numbers-that online advertising is both cost- effective and just plain effective," Taragan explained.

Advertising on free ISPs is definitely something to consider, but carefully. According to a report released a few weeks ago by Nielsen//NetRatings, several factors limit the services' appropriateness for media buys. The positives of advertising with free ISPs, as the study suggests, are many. Free ISPs allow for more flexibility in ad delivery and content, they provide for more precise targeting and more complex advertising models than advertisers can hope for with traditional on-site means, and they reach a more active Internet population than regular online ads - free ISP surfers, who generally fall into the 25-34 year-old bracket, log on 20 to 27 times per month, which is four to 10 times more often than average. But, the ISPs' user demographics skew toward lower-income users - about 15% of NetZero's audience, for example, reports a household income of less than $25,000 - more than 150 times the general Web-surfing population's average. And, NetRatings says, gender-targeting is often hampered by differences among the free ISPs' user-bases - only BlueLight.com, which posted the most active users for the study, mirrors the average 51-49% male-female breakdown of the Web-surfing population, but NetZero and Juno each recorded almost 60% more male users, versus 45% female.