• Forbes, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:17 PM

A new study suggests that advertisers will pay top dollar for a different kind of access to online news readers. A report from ad broker Pontiflex says that marketers will pay publishers an average price of $2.27 for each reader they can convince to fill out a form with their real name and e-mail address, along with a few bits of personal data such as their Twitter handle, phone number or shopping habits.

Pontiflex founder Zephrin Lasker calls the packages of user data extracted from surveys and polls "marketing leads" and says that publishers can boost their revenues by collecting and reselling them.

Pontiflex's report notes that online tech retailer NewEgg and online clothes catalog operator Coldwater Creek successfully identified new customers by buying marketing leads. Other enterprises devoting marketing dollars to lead purchases included Gold's Gym, Blockbuster and Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

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