• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 9, 2010

Food and sports were the categories posting the biggest year-over-year gains in ad pricing in the first quarter, according to the latest quarterly data from vertical ad network Adify. The average effective CPM for the food segment increased 179% to $4.19 from a year ago, while sports was up 121% to $4.

On a quarterly basis, prices shot up the most in the real estate category, where eCPMs nearly doubled to $4.52, as well as a 20% increase in ad impressions and a 13% increase in sell-through rate. Adify attributed the increases to continued recovery in the housing market and increased rates in non-endemic advertising in the segment.

The healthy living and lifestyle vertical had the second-highest growth over the last quarter, with pricing up 35% to $10.97, the highest eCPM of any category tracked by Adify.

"Five of the eleven key verticals experienced major growth in Q1 this year," said Adify President Russ Fradin in a statement. "Now that the Adify Vertical Gauge (AVG) has measured five quarters we're able to get a full view of how vertical eCPMs have fared year over year. Seven of the 11 verticals have higher average eCPMs in Q1 2010 than in Q1 2009, signaling a strong and consistent rebound."

The four that don't are news, travel, moms and parents, and business. Those areas, along with sports, saw a 13% downturn on average since the prior quarter. Adify said the results were largely seasonal, with an expected drop-off from the fourth quarter, when ad budgets tend to be highest. But the pricing declines in those categories from a year ago, except for sports, suggests the contraction is more than seasonal.

In regard to the near tripling of the food eCPM, Adify said it reflected consumer packaged goods advertisers becoming more comfortable with the online medium. The company's quarterly analysis of eCPMs is based on direct-sold campaigns on more than 18,000 sites across its 200 vertical ad networks. The formats covered include banner ads, rollovers, roadblocks, sponsorships, and rich media campaigns.