Nielsen//Netratings report rankings of ad banners

CONNECTICUT –Nielsen//NetRatings, an Internet audience measurement service, today released the first-ever rankings of the top ad banners in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. The results showed a strong advertising presence by global web properties, and a correlation between advertising by global properties and the top-ranked property in each country.

Nielsen//NetRatings is a service provided by ACNielsen eRatings.com (a venture between ACNielsen Corp., NYSE: ART and NetRatings, Inc., Nasdaq: NTRT), Nielsen Media Research and NetRatings, Inc.

The findings are from Nielsen//NetRatings’ unique BannerTrack^SM service, which reports on top banner ads by impression, domain, and company. Findings for the month of June cover eight major Internet markets worldwide, and reveal heavy ad buys by major Internet companies in most overseas markets. Global properties Yahoo! and MSN ran heavy ad schedules – primarily on their own properties – in Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK (see Table 1). At the same time, those properties ranked first or second in terms of unique audience in each market for the month of June.

“MSN and Yahoo! have dominated the Nielsen//NetRatings global properties rankings. While their success in drawing large local audiences is tied to their careful attention to local content, we cannot discount their heavy advertising, which focuses on such value-added services as instant messaging, sports, travel and shopping pages,” said David Day, director of analytical services, ACNielsen eRatings.com. “Their heavy ad banner schedules also show a greater faith in the effectiveness of the Internet as an advertising medium. More traditional brick and mortar companies, who are barely visible in the banner rankings, appear to still be reluctant to target consumers online.”

Table 1: Top Five Ad Banners Viewed At-Home, June 2000
Top advertisers, ranked according to reach percentage, are based on data from BannerTrack^SM Nielsen//NetRatings’ syndicated advertising research report. Percentage reach is defined as the number of unique web users that viewed a web banner at least once in the month of June, expressed as a percentage of the total web population of the country.

AUSTRALIA, June 2000

CANADA, June 2000

IRELAND, June 2000

JAPAN, June 2000

NEW ZEALAND, June 2000

SINGAPORE, June 2000

UNITED KINGDOM, June 2000

UNITED STATES, June 2000

*Impressions reported include house ads, which are ads that run on an advertiser’s own web property.
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, June 2000

Day pointed to the heavy advertising by MSN in Canada – with each ad reaching an impressive 20% or more of the web population – as evidence of the strong correlation between advertising and top-property status. MSN was the top property in Canada for June, reaching 53% of the active Internet universe and a unique audience of 4,278,000. Within the MSN property, the messenger service, which the property heavily advertised in June, ranked as the 27^th most visited page.

“In Canada, MSN is growing beyond its strong position in free email services, using advertising to boost traffic to the messenger service, positioning that capability as an opportunity for growth,” Day said. “The messenger service for Canada drew nearly 60% of its traffic from females, and a majority in the 25-34 year old age range. The demographics of the visitors to the messenger service’s top-rated banner ad in Canada were also majority female, but with a slimmer, 53% margin, and with the majority in the much younger 12-17 year old age range.”

Day also noted that the opposite seemed true in Australia, where dot-com advertising appeared to sweep the month. However, a closer look at Carpoint.com.au, the ad banner that won the first three spots in that country in terms of percentage reach, but was the 326^th most visited site in Australia for June, reveals that the site is a member of the ninemsn family. ninemsn is an online joint venture between the Microsoft Corporation and Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL).

“Despite initial appearances in Australia, the same trend of heavy advertising by global properties holds true there for June,” Day said. “Carpoint.com.au is a site that provides one-stop research and shopping for cars. A look at their media schedule reveals that the banner ran exclusively on MSN properties throughout the month. It’s also interesting to note the heavy emphasis on e-Commerce advertising in Australia, which may indicate a push on the part of advertisers to influence a large market where e-Commerce is surprisingly underdeveloped.”

Nielsen//NetRatings also measures the average click rate for ad banners by country. Day pointed to the June results, which cited New Zealand and Ireland surfers as having the highest average click rate for ad banners, versus Canada with the lowest click rate (see Table 2).

“The results are interesting given the recent concern in the US over the perceived ineffectiveness of banner advertising,” he said. “US consumers actually click on ad banners with greater frequency than consumers in the UK, Australia, Singapore and Canada. Since the US has the most mature Internet audience in the world right now, these results underscore the effectiveness of banner ads by demonstrating that even consumers who have had a high amount of exposure to Internet advertising continue to interact with the banners.”

Table 2. Average Click Rate for Home Surfers

Click rate indicates the frequency with which the average Internet user clicked on ad banners.

Nielsen//NetRatings’ unique BannerTrack^SM service provides advertisers and media planners with detailed, accurate and reliable information for use in competitive research, post-buy and creative analysis. Reports include top banner ads by impression, domain, and company. The actual banner image is included, as well as percentage reach. Special drill-down features allow clients to instantly view audience demographics for a specific banner or campaign; rank banners by unique audience, impressions and click rate; see sites where the ad ran, and view top advertisers