Free ISPs are proving themselves as viable advertising vehicles, according to a report released last Wednesday by Nielsen//NetRatings, but several factors limit the services' appropriateness for
media buys.
The positives of advertising with free ISPs, as the study suggests, are many. For one, free ISPs allow for more flexibility in ad delivery, as well as in their content. Also, they
can also provide for more precise targeting and more complex advertising models than advertisers can hope for with traditional on-site means.
Additionally, the study's findings suggest
that advertising on free ISPs reaches a more active Internet population than traditional online ads - free ISP surfers, who generally fall into the 25-34 year-old bracket, log on 20 to 27 times per
month, which is four to 10 times more often than average, according to NetRatings.
However, the study also revealed several negatives facing potential advertisers on free ISPs. For example,
the ISPs' user demographics skew toward lower-income users. While the services do report a few high-income users, about 15% of free ISP NetZero's audience, for example, reports a household income
of less than $25,000 -- more than 150 times the general Web-surfing population's average.
Furthermore, gender-targeting is often hampered by differences among the free ISPs' user-bases – only
BlueLight.com, which posted the most active users for the study, mirrors the average 51-49% male-female breakdown of the Web-surfing population, but NetZero and Juno each recorded almost 60% more
male users, versus 45% female.
What does this mean to you? The study's authors also suggest that advertisers who normally prefer to negotiate media buys through ad networks and other
intermediaries, might be forced to negotiate with a direct sales force, since most sales are made directly through the ISP.