Commentary

Just an Online Minute... Big Players Doing Well

According to the latest data release from the Online Publishers Association (OPA), fourteen top quality online content sites reported that Q2 ad sales were up by a whopping 34.2% compared to the same quarter last year.

The OPA says that year-to-date ad revenue grew an average of 33.5% compared to the same period last year. In addition, total revenue among this group increased an average of 36.1% in the second quarter of this year compared to the same quarter last year, with year-to-date revenue growing an average of 33.7%.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? The odd thing here is that while the OPA is full of optimism, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is painting a diametrically different picture.

The IAB quietly released their Q1 totals two weeks ago, and according to their calculations Internet ad revenue in the U.S. declined 18% from the first quarter of 2001. The IAB said that the ongoing weakness in revenue results “continues to mirror the experience of most of the entire advertising market,” so I doubt their Q2 totals will paint a very different picture.

Why the huge difference? The two organizations are measuring completely different things. The OPA focuses on its members (only 14 top content sites in this case), while the IAB surveys the whole industry. It’s up to you to decide whose method is better, but OPA executive director Michael Zimbalist actually took a thinly veiled stab at the IAB today, saying in a press release that the focus on industry-wide Internet ad sales figures “masks the important trend we're witnessing, which indicates that advertisers are seeking out strongly branded media sites for their online ad placements.”

He added that advertisers are “beginning to realize that high-quality content sites, with their rich editorial environments and loyal audiences, provide significant return on media spending."

I can’t really argue with that last part, but I do think that the little guys still count, don’t you?

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