• by Brad Agens , January 31, 2008

People are always going on and on about leaving a bigger footprint for engagement. (And who wouldn't want to?) Consider the media value of the Mid-Tail. You'll be making the digital equivalent of those plaster molds in Yosemite in no time. 

Online brand advertisers know about the power of engagement - the more time a user spends with a brand the better - and that engagement potential increases with both the size of the creative unit and opportunity for interaction.

Ideally, advertisers should avail themselves of some of the larger creative units and many emerging forms of integration that take advantage of the unique interactive opportunities of the Web, e.g., home page re-skins, microsites, product placement, advertorials, promotions, etc. The costs of these, however, result in reducing the overall budget for audience reach. 

How do online media planners balance the costs of delivering an engaging online creative campaign with the need to achieve maximum reach of target prospects with a minimum amount of waste? They look for space and time that deliver three key media value factors: relatively low CPMs, highly targeted Comp Indices and low-cost creative execution and integration. These values are usually found in abundant supply among "Mid-Tail" Web sites.  

It's worth spending a moment to define and distinguish this important mid-size area of the Internet landscape. A recent review of comScore's Unique Visitor (UV) data shows the total distribution of over 100 million Web properties (no joke; there are that many active URLs) breaking into four distinct sets, each with its own unique features and benefits. These are: the four Portals, Top 50 Properties, 1,000 Mid-Tail properties and the 100-million-plus Long-Tail sites. There's an organic break after the four Portals, with around 15 million UVs, and another at 1 million. The 1,000 sites before you hit the 1 million mark comprise the Mid-Tail. After that you get into the waaaay Long-Tail.

After the four Portals, there's a natural break at the head of the distribution curve around 80 million UVs per month where the Top 50 Properties span a huge area down to about 15 million UVs. This section comprises those 1,000 properties that range in size between 15 and 1 million UVs per month, and it is this area that, years ago, Gorilla Nation began referring to as the Mid-Tail. Beyond this, the 100-million-plus Long-Tail sites represent what is simply an unmanageable universe of sites only useful through ad networks which have no site-specific publisher relationships and therefore no efficient opportunities for "beyond the banner" creative.

(That's not to say any site with under 1 million UVs is not useful to brand advertisers - many sites with fewer UVs per month deliver valuable niche audiences and can accommodate integration many brand advertisers can leverage with great success if they know where to look. This is, of course, a separate matter and one which demands some amount of art and intuition on the part of the buyer.)

The front end of this spread is quite similar to the TV media model, which began with a few broadcast networks, grew to about 50 channels with basic cable and exploded to 1,000 channels with digital cable.  

Think of the model as putting ads in a place where consumers are interacting with their surroundings versus sticking a poster next to an escalator taking them somewhere else. A simple comparison of the Portals, Top 50 and Mid-Tail properties reveals the importance of considering all three of the aforementioned key media value factors in determining overall efficiency of any online buy. Yes, ROS media placements on the Portals offer low CPMs because their audiences are general in nature, and while very unfocused, represent a great buy for mass marketers desiring reach without frequency. But if an online brand advertiser wants to do anything especially targeted or unusually creative, then Portals lose their efficiency. The Top 50's CPMs are usually higher than the Portals because they offer a greater degree of target accuracy with less waste, but still do not deliver the highest Comp Indices available. Additionally, as demand for these coveted few increases, larger sites become less flexible in creating integrated media programs that offer brand marketers efficient reach and frequency. This is a key consideration as online media planning becomes more waste-sensitive and concerned with emerging measures of engagement.  

The best balance of values today is provided by smart use of the Mid-Tail where CPMs are not as cheap as the Portals, but also not as expensive as the Top 50. This cost savings is further highlighted by the fact that the Comp Indices for specific audience segments are higher given the increasingly niched or affinity nature of properties moving down the tail. The reach footprint on Mid-Tail properties is, therefore, considerably larger given lower CPMs with concomitantly lower waste.

But that's not all: For those savvy online marketers looking to take advantage of the unique interactive qualities offered by the Web, the costs of creative integration throughout the Mid-Tail are also much, much lower. To develop and execute a home page re-skin, contest or microsite is considerably cheaper in terms of both dollar and emotional cost. The labor-intensive internal sales forces employed by the Portals and Top 50 result in effective opportunities for integration, but costs and ability to execute are often restrictive. Mid-Tail Web publishers are eager to accommodate a huge array of integration applications and therefore not only charge smaller fees but are delighted to do so. The advertiser's creative footprint is, therefore, considerably bigger given the larger amount of space devoted to brand messaging and the potential for interaction. There's just more bang for the buck in every way.

A quick example: For an online brand advertiser wanting to reach young men, two options include a Top 50 property like IGN and a Mid-Tail site like FHM Online. IGN might average about a $12 CPM (rising to as high as $35 for the home page) compared with FHM's $8. Moreover, IGN's Comp Index for the prime demo, males 21-34, is 111 compared with FHM's 269, making FHM more than twice as efficient. Add a home page re-skin at a tiny fraction of the overall media budget, and the advertiser's creative assets on FHM can cover an area up to 10 times that of a simple banner ad on IGN. Now that's a footprint with legs.

But, shhhhhhhh! Let's keep this whole Mid-Tail footprint business our little secret. While the values are here today, just as the Top 50 Properties got too expensive and cluttered as a result of demand, so might the Mid-Tail in years to come. So, better step on it!

Brad Agens is senior vice president of advertising sales at Gorilla Nation. (brad.agens@gorillanation.com)