The Online Publishers Association will unveil new research today concluding that Web users who visit sites of their members are more desirable to some marketers than online visitors at Yahoo, AOL, MSN and other portals. But digital advertising executives say it doesn't necessarily make sense to compare the portals--which offer vast reach--to sites of individual publishers, which often serve niche audiences. The OPA's report concludes that visitors to its 50 members' sites, including The New York Times Co., Bankrate.com, ESPN.com and Edmunds.com, are more likely than visitors to the major portal/search properties (including AOL, Google, MSN, and Yahoo) to conduct certain marketer-friendly activities. For instance, the report states that visitors to member sites are more likely than portal visitors to buy or lease a luxury car, trade stocks, purchase real estate and take vacations. "Across a broad spectrum of activities and demographic measurements, OPA audiences offer a significant advantage for advertisers," states the report. Specifically, the report concludes that OPA visitors are 97% more likely than the population at large to own or lease a luxury car, while portal visitors are 65% more likely to do so. OPA visitors also are 117% more likely to trade stocks, bonds or mutual funds online, compared to portal visitors, who are 65% more likely to do so. OPA site visitors are 21% more likely to have purchased real estate in the last six months, while visitors to portal sites are 3% more likely to have done so; and the OPA audience was 71% more likely to have taken five or more vacations in the last year, while the portal audience was 40% more likely to have taken five-plus vacations. The OPA compiled these statistics based on panel data from Nielsen//NetRatings @Plan Summer 2006 index and MRI's Spring 2006 index. OPA President Pam Horan said the organization is releasing the study to demonstrate the worth of advertising on its members' sites. "There's an incredible value that we have to offer," said Horan. But some ad executives say that media buys at portals and OPA sites work in tandem. "It's never an either-or situation," said Jeff Lanctot, general manager of the aQuantive online ad agency Avenue A/Razorfish. "It's how do they fit together?" "What we focus on is, how does the mix of sites, the combination of digital touch points, lead you to meaningful engagement with the consumer," he added. For instance, he said, car buyers might start their research at Yahoo Autos and then, after they have narrowed their options, go to a site like Edmunds.com. Last year, 35% of Avenue A/Razorfish's media billings were in vertical sites, while 13% were at the portals, Lanctot said. Sarah Fay, president of Aegis' interactive ad agency network, Isobar, US, added that the huge number of visitors at portals distinguished them from the OPA sites, which draw more specialized audiences. "The portals are a little bit more fluid. They have more people coming through them," she said. In addition, Fay said, portals offer sophisticated targeting options that allow advertisers to reach precise audience segments. "You can do behavioral targeting within Yahoo and can be very efficient within your buy, and go right after the behavior you're looking for," Fay said. At the same time, OPA sites "provide an excellent environment for contextually relevant advertising," she said. "OPA sites have focused content and therefore attract loyal visitors that are serious about the subject matter they publish." Emily Riley, an advertising analyst with Jupiter Research, added that in addition to the large audience, portals also offer search advertising, which allows marketers to get in front of consumers while they are researching purchases. "These are things that a branded content-oriented site cannot compete with," she said. Yahoo sites last month drew 129.7 million unique visitors, while Microsoft sites garnered 119.4 million and Google captured 107.3 million, according to comScore Networks. By contrast, the New York Times Digital--which includes the Web sites NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com--drew 40.5 million uniques, while ESPN.com garnered 20.4 million.
Aiming to expand beyond niche self-help sites, Waterfront Media on Wednesday formally launched EverydayHealth.com, a broad-based health site built around 40 "condition centers" covering everything from diabetes to schizophrenia. "What we're trying to do is help consumers manage their health online, not just by giving them a bunch of definitions, but providing good community and interactive tools," said Waterfront Media CEO Ben Wolin. In particular, the site is geared toward helping consumers deal with medical conditions after being diagnosed. The site has also enlisted 14 specialists from top medical institutions to oversee relevant centers and interact with members through blogs, online chats and by answering health questions online. Until now, the company has mainly been known for creating online extensions of books such as the "South Beach Diet" and "8 Weeks to Optimum Health." Waterfront launched a beta version of EverydayHealth this summer, and has pre-registered 3 million users so far. Last month, Waterfront Media sites drew 3.9 million unique visitors--ranking sixth behind the likes of WebMD, MSN Health and Yahoo Health, according to comScore Media Metrix. Wolin's goal is to become the second-ranked health site by next year behind WebMD, which had 14.2 million visitors last month. That would likely help to attract even more health-focused marketers to EverydayHealth, which already counts six of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies among its advertisers. In addition to the value of being associated with the site's high-quality editorial content, Wolin said it offers the advertisers the ability to target consumers narrowly by the conditions they're researching. "They can reach them throughout the site, no matter where they are," said Wolin. Of course, that type of tracking of consumers' health conditions raises privacy concerns. To safeguard members' medical privacy, Wolin said third parties aren't allowed access to users' health profiles unless they grant access--to another member, for example. He also said that none of the tracking data that advertisers use is personally identifiable, and that consumers can also control privacy settings for the site. For now, the site features mostly banner ads but is expanding into pre-roll video advertising, particularly through its video library section. The library offers short informational videos on health conditions and success stories. About 70% of the site's ad inventory is already sold because Waterfront began drumming up interest among marketers and agencies during its soft launch over the summer, said Wolin.
Online recruiting giant Monster is teaming with the Akron Beacon Journal to start a co-branded job section on the newspaper's Ohio.com site. The deal will replace CareerBuilder, the current national job listings provider on Ohio.com, with Monster by mid-November. The partnership with the Akron Beacon Journal is the second alliance Monster has formed recently with a newspaper company to boost its presence in local markets. The company forged a similar deal in August with the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News to replace CareerBuilder as the job site provider on philly.com. CareerBuilder was a joint venture among several newspaper companies including Gannett Corp., Tribune Co., and Knight Ridder, the former parent company of the Beacon Journal. The paper was bought earlier this year by Canada-based Black Press Ltd. from the McClatchy Co. By pairing with Monster, the Beacon Journal aims to expand its online recruiting advertising to the greater Cleveland area and northeast Ohio. "Monster is the No. 1 national recruiting site and we are the strongest in terms of local Web sites," said Beacon Journal Publisher Ed Moss. "We're combining the strengths of both and that's why we have so much confidence it's going to be positive for both companies." Ohio.com had 334,000 unique visitors as of August, and receives about 6 million monthly page views, according to Linda Morley Lyell, vice president, online operations for the Beacon Journal. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but Moss said both Monster and the paper planned to expand and coordinate their local sales efforts through the venture. "This agreement further illustrates Monster's commitment to accelerate our business by creating alliances that drive local market share," said Peter Newton, senior vice president and general manager for small and medium businesses at Monster. Through its partnership with Philadelphia Media Holdings, page views on philly.com's job section have already increased 25 percent in September compared to the year-earlier period, according to Monster. The moves reflect Monster's strategy of teaming up with local newspapers as a way to boost online classifieds from small businesses after hitting a wall in increasing executive recruitment, said Gordon Borrell, president of Internet research firm Borrell Associates. "It needs the local promotion that a newspaper, TV or radio station can give it," he said. But Borrell cautioned that newspapers such as the Beacon Journal and Philadelphia Inquirer now face the challenge of having to build up the Monster brand in their local markets after years of doing the same for CareerBuilder. Beacon Journal Publisher Moss, however, said the paper's new ownership had freed it to pursue new relationships. "It's put us in a position to be able to move quickly on new opportunities in the marketplace," he said.
Google Wednesday began a public beta test of a new tool aimed at helping paid search marketers increase conversion rates by testing multiple configurations of the same page. The tool, Google Website Optimizer, allows site owners to test different headlines, copy and images on sites to evaluate which combinations give the most conversions as represented by sales, signups or other actions. Google is testing the tool in partnership with two Web analytics consulting firms, EpikOne and Optimost, which will provide additional professional support and consulting. AdWords marketers can apply to be invited to test the tool, which will be available for free. Mark Wachen, CEO of Optimost, said he expects that Google's test will draw attention to the field of optimizing Web sites via testing. "For five years we've been pitching multivariable testing and the benefits of it," he said, adding that many marketers remained unaware of the strategy. The new Google initiative, he said, will "bring us much more into the mainstream." Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Marketing Intelligence, said the move marks an attempt by Google to help smaller advertisers that can't afford professional Web site optimization to get better performance on their landing pages, which in turn, will increase their loyalty to the Google brand. "To the extent that it helps people build better landing pages and get better conversion rates, it's a good thing," he said. "Then Google gets rewarded with continued spending from its advertisers."