Media & Marketing:Advertisers spent €13.5 million online last year across 90 Irish websites, according to the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI).
This total excludes spend on Google, MSN, YouTube and other international websites and networks. Including those sites and classified and search advertising, the internet ad agency Ican estimates that the total online spend by Irish advertisers through 2006 at over €40 million.
Ican estimates that credit card company MBNA spent the most targeting Irish eyeballs last year, with an online outlay of €630,000. Other major online advertisers included Vodafone (€470,000); Sky (€340,000), Quinn Direct (€330,000) and AIB (€300,000). So there's serious money in website advertising, and although advertisers can be increasingly confident of measuring the reach of their online spend, they're in the dark about the demographic.
Advertisers are understandably reluctant to advertise in a newspaper or magazine that does not have its circulation audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC). The ABC certificate is a gold-plated guarantee for advertisers that the publication's stated circulation is accurate. But what about online? The ABC has been attempting to extend its reach to websites, though so far with limited success.
It's 11 years since ABC Electronic was established to provide third-party independent verification and certification for data related to electronic media in the UK and Ireland. However, only 11 websites based in the Republic are currently listed on the ABC's latest report. On the ABC website - www.abc.org.uk - advertisers can check for themselves each website's number of unique users and page impressions, as well as a daily activity period for the audit report.
Yesterday, Ireland.com had its page impressions for March 2007 certified by ABC Electronic at 17.3 million and unique users at 1.2 million.
ABC verification is essential for any website selling ad space or sponsorship across its site for a fixed monthly fee. But Shenda Loughnane, managing director of Ican, says that ABC auditing is not necessary for sites that sell online ads based on views or click-throughs.
What those sites do need is ad serving technology used by both the ad agency and the publisher. So far, no single third-party measurement software has emerged as the industry standard.
The other big lack in the online sector in Ireland is tools for media planners.
Loughnane say: "For example, we have no idea how many people in Ireland watch Channel 4 online. There is no data in this country that provides profiling of sites or profiles of users of sites. What ad agencies need to know is who is using which sites."
Recently, the IAPI accepted the membership of its first digital agency, Interactive Return and later this year, it will publish a revamped Joint National Internet Research survey. However, Loughnane isn't confident that the survey will deliver the profiling data the agencies need.
"Trying to make the JNIR research for a new medium like the internet fit into an older model of research used for radio and press doesn't seem like a good idea. The JNIR will be nice to have, but it will be limited to Irish websites. I want to target Irish people using national and international websites."
LOGGED ON: most visited Irish sites
Just 11 websites based in the Republic of Ireland are currently listed on the ABC's Island of Ireland audited websites report - Carzone.ie, Daft.ie, Eircom, Ireland.com, Irishjobs.ie, Monster.ie, Myhome.ie, Pigsback.com, Propertynews.com, RTÉ and Skool.ie.
•Daft.ie - 38.8 million page impressions and 573,914 unique users - audit period Sept 06
•Carzone.ie - 34.8 million page impressions and 470,048 unique users - audit period Jan 07
•Myhome.ie - 26.4 million page impressions and 339,233 unique users - audit period Sept 06
•Eircom - 23.9 million page impressions and 1 million unique users - audit period Oct 06
•RTÉ - 23.1 million page impressions and 1.1 million unique users - audit period Oct 06
•Ireland.com - 17.3 million page impressions and 1.2 million unique users - audit period March 07
•Propertynews.com - 12.1 million page impressions and 254,536 unique users - audit period Aug 06
•Irishjobs.ie - 9 million page impressions and 413,766 unique users - audit period Jan 07
•Pigsback.com - 9.4 million page impressions and 247,472 unique users - audit period Nov 06
•Monster.ie - 3.1 million page impressions and 158,644 unique users - audit period Sept 05
•Skoool.ie - 788,008 page impressions and 20,714 unique users - audit period Nov 02
RTÉ coverage polls apart
There's no need for RTÉ to panic about competing election results coverage from TV3. On the count day, May 25th, TV3 is pushing the boat out by adding 30 minutes to its normal half-hour bulletin at 5.30pm.
Alan Cantwell and Colette Fitzpatrick will present the programme, with live coverage from the main count centres.
In contrast, over on RTÉ 1, normal programming will be abandoned in favour of wall to wall coverage of the election results, presented by John Bowman, Brian Dobson, Mark Little and Miriam O'Callaghan.
Meanwhile, www.rte.ie/election, www.ireland.com/focus/election2007 and www.eircom.net/election are all now live.
Round of support for Open
It's the first Irish Golf Open in years not to have a title sponsor, but a round of support partners and sponsors are on board for the tournament taking place in Adare Manor from May 17th - 20th, including Fáilte Ireland, McInerney Homes, McNamara building contractors, Pallas Foods, Roadbridge, Audi, Limerick County Council, Shannon Development, Kingspan and Rolex.
The prize fund has been increased from €2.2 million to €2.5 million. McInerney is offering a €440,000 Spanish apartment to any golfer who scores a hole in one at the 11th.
Siobhán O'Connell can be contacted at siobhan@businessplus.ie
