• by August 2, 2000

Ignoring several companies who disputed their self-proclaimed dominance of the online advertising world, Engage today announced internal research findings that demonstrate their "continuing ability to help advertisers achieve higher click- through rates and conversion rates through proven optimization methodology."

The announcement claims that all of the advertisers who participated in the study achieved click-through rates of "more than double the industry average of 0.4%."

Two points of contention: First, the 0.4% comes from a February 2000 Jupiter report, which has raised some eyebrows since most advertisers would peg average click-throughs at around 0.2%, and falling.

Second, Engage makes it sound as if optimization is a new concept, which it is not. Nor is Engage a pioneer here - companies like Advertising.com (which just today secured $57 million in financing from the likes of WPP Group, the Reuters Group and America Online), and several others have been optimizing online ad campaigns for over a year.

For the Engage study, participating advertisers were evaluated by the difference in their CTR and conversion rates before and after optimization - running a campaign across the Engage Media Network of 4,600 sites to determine the best performing sites and then fine-tune media buys across media programs, focusing on those that are generating the best results.

Not surprisingly, optimized CTR were on an average, nearly 100% higher than pre-optimized campaigns.

Imagine that!