Showcases Strong Recovery among Hispanic Sites & Superior Impact on Offline Sales

Latinos currently make up a coveted U.S. marketing segment. No other ethnic group in the United States is targeted by such a vast network of advertising agencies and an entire marketing industry selling them consumer products by addressing them as a common people and a market. 1

The introductory quote helps to frame this brief inquiry into display advertising spending among Hispanic Sites in comparison to Total US – home/work/university locations. As whispers of an economic recovery have finally turned into more solid year-end predictions, marketers have already increased their display advertising allocation towards Hispanic Sites (a.k.a. Terra Competitive Set).

comScore’s AdMetrix Estimated Spending ($000) Beta metric became available July ‘08 onward, as such quarterly display advertising estimated spend growth vs. YA is not yet available, yet changes from comparing previous quarters provide actionable insights for marketers.

As exposed in the chart above, total estimated spending among Terra’s competitive set for Q3 ‘08 was $1.4M vs. Total US of $2.416M, representing 0.06% of Total US. Subsequently, Q4 ‘08 vs. Q3 ‘08 had a noticeable drop in both Terra’s competitive set and Total US, -18% and -10%, respectively. Hispanic Site recovery occurred Q1 ‘09, where Terra’s competitive set garnered $3.8M estimated spending which was a 229% increase vs. Q4 ‘08; while Total US had an estimated spending of $2.18M and changing 0% vs. Q4 ‘08. Notably, during Q1 ’09, Terra’s competitive set comprised 0.18% of Total US in estimated spending metric, the highest quarterly representation available.

It is already very well known that benefits beyond the click are derived from exposure to a display campaign. However, display is typically incorrectly stereotyped as an excellent branding vehicle while search advertising’s forte is driving sales. Meanwhile, a recent groundbreaking finding by comScore champions the benefits of Display advertising over Search ads in influencing sales, because Display has higher household % penetration. 2

Indeed, sales lift among those exposed to a Search ad is higher than Display only.

Since Display ads reach many more people than Search ads,

the total dollar sales as a result of being exposed to Display advertising is often larger than Search due to Display’s smaller lift (16%) from a larger base (81%).

A screenshot of comScore’s AdMetrix shows how some advertising categories benefit more than others among Total US, Mar 09.

As noted in the screenshot above, Business/Finance category is #1 by total Display ad views (000) of 25,620,367 representing 7.9% share of Display ads among Total U.S. Actually, the top 4 categories above: Business/Finance, Telecommunications, Corporate Presence & Retail represent 27.3% share of display ads. Total Display advertising estimated spending for March 2009 alone is $789,374,000 with the top 4 categories above allocating $210,269,000.

Terra has been strategically planning to service the US Hispanic Internet User as its primary visitor and core experience, while also catering to advertisers looking to target this coveted US market segment. In addition to our normal Terra properties such as Terra.com dedicated to the US Hispanic Internet User in both Spanish & English, and our entire network of 19 regional portals in 18 countries, we have two exciting offerings beyond our core sites.

Terra is now exclusively selling advertising on MiGente.com (http://www.terra.com/advertise/in-the-news075.htm). Secondly, Terra’s advertising network, called EZTarget Media, has been available since Fall ’08 (http://www.terra.com/advertise/in-the-news068.htm) and differentiates itself from its competitors by offering top quality sites frequented by US Hispanics primarily, versus just any site in general market to grow reach.

Be a Smart Marketer. Inquire with Terra Research about reach, demographics, and behavioral psycho-demographics not only for display advertising in the US General Market, but also Latin America online and worldwide. Meaning, one can serve campaigns within our 19 regional portals in 18 countries as such, and/or geo target actual traffic by country (so traffic from Terra Mexico, terra.com.mx, can be geo targeted to serve ads only from its US traffic for those interested in targeting US Hispanics by country of origin Mexico in the United States, and so on…) Display advertising among Terra’s competitive set at least, is performing very well in comparison to Total US, Q1 ’09 vs Q4 ’08. Display advertising often helps lift offline sales more than search advertising due in part to its superior reach.

Sources:

1.) Dávila, Arlene. Mambo Montage. The Latin Side of Madison Avenue. Marketing and the Language that Makes Us “Hispanics”. Colombia University Press. New York, NY. Pg 411

2.) Neufeld, Evan. Are You Leaving ROI on the Table. comScore. May ‘09

By Natasha Funk

Published:  June 09