• by Masha Geller , May 8, 2001

It might be self-serving research in some respects, but it's worth noting that the "Webcasters Speak Out" survey released at the Webcast Advertising Today Conference, shows that nearly two-thirds (63%) of webcasters have been called by agencies placing webcast ads.

Conducted by Arbitron Webcast Services, a division of Arbitron Inc., the survey says "webcasters have embraced webcast advertising as a revenue-generating business model for the future - with an overwhelming 85% having sold at least one webcast advertising buy in the past year."

One buy does not a revenue-generating business model make, but as Arbitron's Bill Rose pointed out, in a study conducted last year, nearly half of the agencies said they had never been approached by webcasters trying to sell advertising. That means the last 12 months were quite an improvement.

As it turns out, 45% of webcasters sell a combination of webcast ads, sponsorships, in-stream ads and gateway ads. A majority (80%) has sold in-stream ads - ads within the streamed content.

A high percentage (42%) of webcast ad dollars come from direct advertisers with one-third from interactive agencies and only one-quarter (25%) from traditional agencies. Two- thirds of webcast advertising is sold to brick and mortar companies and slightly more than one-third (34%) to dot-com companies. Automotive companies are the number one target for webcast ad sales, followed by entertainment (24%), music (20%), dot-coms (15%) and alcoholic beverage companies (13%).

And, almost one-third (30%) of webcasters feel that the lack of metrics is the biggest obstacle to selling advertising, followed by advertiser awareness and interest (24%), lack of coherent sales message (23%) and technology issues (10%).