Half Off-Target

A ClickZ column today by David Cohen of the Universal McCann Interactive advertising agency tells how far off the target demographic many media Web sites ad campaigns hit. For examples:

“One amazing thing we routinely find is the relatively low target composition of some of the most targeted Web properties. Though it’s true syndicated research isn’t granular enough to provide demographic breakdowns of all channels and subchannels of a particular site, according to comScore Media Metrix in July 2003 only 65.4 percent of iVillage’s audience was female; 21.7 percent of TeenPeople.com’s was 12-17 (if you add 18-24 year olds, you only get 38 percent 12-24); 59.4 percent of ESPN.com’s was male; and only 49.2 percent of Forbes.com’s were users with a household income of $75,000-plus.

“After doing these types of analyses for many years, I can safely say the most targeted Web properties, demographically speaking, will only deliver 50-60 percent composition of your target. Right off the bat (before applying our formula), 40-50 percent of your impressions are wasted inasmuch as they don’t reach the intended target.”

… “This is a serious problem directly related to the above issue. Fact is, in three separate instances in which we compared the two, the reach and frequency of a campaign that entered into a syndicated research tool differed from actual DoubleClick delivery data from -81 to 90 percent. I’m no statistician, but that’s an unacceptable fluctuation.

What We Do

Since 1996, the media business consulting firm of Digital Deliverance has provided publishers and broadcasters on four continents with strategic reviews and advice about how to profitably adapt to the epochal changes that computer-mediated technologies have wrought on the media environment and their industries.

Over the years, the firm’s clients have include The New York Times, News Corporation, The Irish Times of Dublin, Dagbladet of Oslo, The Mail & Guardian of Johannesburg, Advance Publications, Critical Mention, MediaNews Group, New Century Network, the Media Development Investment Fund, the National Cancer Institutes, and scores of other media firms that need to adapt to computer-mediated technologies and the rise of Individuated Media.

The managing partner of Digital Deliverance is Vin Crosbie, Adjunct Professor of postgraduate New Media Management at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, in upstate New York. From 2007 through 2020, he wrote and was the sole instructor of the school’s New Media Business course, a course required for students in the New Media Management master’s degree curriculuum, an elective course for Ph.D. students, and a permission-only course for selected undergraduates and graduate students.

Digital Deliverance is incorporated as a limited liability company in the U.S. state of Connecticut, where it is based in the city of Norwich, Connecticut.