Commentary

Just an Online Minute... Revenues Up

Things are looking up! The Online Publishers Association announced yesterday that a poll of 24 OPA members showed that first-quarter ad revenue grew an average of 40.7% over Q1 2002. What's more, total revenue among this group was up an average of 37.6% over the same period last year.

Michael Zimbalist, executive director of the Online Publishers Association, put it best. "The strong ad revenue growth of OPA member companies provides further proof that advertisers are directing their spending toward high-quality content sites," he said. "In this respect, the Internet is no different than traditional media: Context matters."

So do demographics and the fact that the web is oftentimes the only way to reach a particular demographic. According to the most recent OPA findings, for nearly three in ten work web users, the Internet is the only medium consumed during the daytime.

Specifically, usage among top-level professionals exceeds all other At Work users during most dayparts by anywhere between 5 and 13%, with the greatest percentage (81%) found online in the morning before lunch. In addition, affluent users with annual incomes of $75k and above are more prevalent online throughout the day until evening, when average income levels of online users decline.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that advertisers are spending more of their online budgets with the top publishers who produce the best content, which attracts the best audiences, but I thought it was worth mentioning, if only to feel better about working in this industry.

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