• by Shankar Gupta , December 7, 2006

Broadband users are slightly more likely to pay attention to ads from brand marketers when those ads appear on smaller, niche Web sites than on sites with more than one million unique visitors a month. That's one of the key findings of a new report by Media-Screen, slated for release next week.

For the report, Media Screen surveyed 1,356 broadband users, asking them to determine on a scale of one to seven how likely they were to be interested in products on given sites. Respondents gave 42% of the small sites (traffic of less than one million uniques) one of the top ratings, compared to 39% of the larger sites.

Cate Riegner, Media-Screen's director of research, said that smaller sites often have a tighter focus, and so are better able to capture consumers' attention. "People are more engaged and more involved in the smaller sites that speak to a topic of keen interest to them," she said. "If you can connect with a customer on a level of great attention or great involvement, they'll be more interested in the ads you have." Riegner added that users often perceived their favorite sites to have especially interesting ads.