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Exposing Online Ad User Segmentation Data

ComScore announced the introduction of their Ad Metrix Publisher, a new service that provides insight into the online advertising landscape by reporting where display ads are actually viewed across the Internet -- and the characteristics of the people who are exposed to them.

Ad Metrix Publisher captures all types of display advertising, including static and rich media or interactive ads, for the U.S. market.

"comScore Ad Metrix Publisher, the inaugural service from our Ad Metrix product suite, is the first online advertising measurement service to accurately account for the number of ads displayed and tie those views to actual Web users," said Alistair Sutcliffe, vice president of comScore Advertising Solutions.

Understanding the reach, frequency and audience composition for an online advertising plan is vital information for any media planner. Ad Metrix provides the tools for optimizing the placement of online ad dollars, thereby fulfilling the promise of the Internet to deliver greater media accountability.

To illustrate the impact of understanding who's viewing online ads, comScore utilized the Ad Metrix Publisher service to analyze the share of display ads viewed by various demographics across three competitive sports Web sites -- ESPN, Fox Sports on MSN, and Yahoo! Sports. The results of the study revealed several notable differences among the sites.

While the three sites had similar ratios of males to females viewing display ads on the sites, they exhibited different skews by age and household income.

Display ads on ESPN reached the highest share of people age 35-44 (28.6 percent) and households with an income of at least $100,000 (34.7 percent). Display ads on Fox Sports on MSN skewed heavily towards people age 45 and older (39.7 percent) and households earning between $40,000-$59,999 (31.7 percent).

Meanwhile, Yahoo! Sports fared the best at capturing the 18-34 year old demographic, with 36.5 percent of its ads reaching people in that age group.

A deeper dive into the 18-34 year old demographic revealed that Yahoo! Sports delivered the most ads to this demographic, capturing the highest share among the three sites (53.5 percent). Although advertising for all three sites reached a similar percentage of viewers within this segment, Yahoo Sports delivered about twice as many ad views.

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