Comscore Launches Ad Metrix in Australia to Provide Competitive Intelligence for Online Display Advertising

Facebook Accounts for Nearly 1 in Every 4 Display Ad Impressions in Australia

Sydney, Australia, March 13, 2012 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the launch of Comscore Ad Metrix in Australia. The service offers advertisers, agencies and publishers comprehensive insights into where display ad impressions appeared online, the demographic composition of the audiences reached, along with traditional advertising metrics such as reach/frequency and GRPs.

In January 2012, 15.6 billion display ad impressions were delivered online in Australia, reaching 15.1 million Internet users. Results from the debut report found that Facebook.com ranked as the top display ad publisher during the month, accounting for nearly 1 in every 4 display ad impressions (23.0 percent share), while IAC – InterActiveCorp led as the top advertiser with 275.8 million display ad impressions, driven largely by its Match.com brand.

“Today an average Australian internet user receives more than 1,000 display ads each month, highlighting the significance of digital advertising in the broader media landscape,” said Amy Weinberger, Comscore vice president for Australia and New Zealand. “This increasingly important channel in the marketing mix creates a growing need for market-level understanding and competitive insights so that agencies, advertisers and publishers can effectively navigate this complex environment. Comscore Ad Metrix delivers the critical insights needed to optimize digital advertising strategies and benchmark performance versus the competition.”

Comscore Ad Metrix provides actionable insights for advertisers and agencies to optimize display ad campaigns, while supplying publishers with important third-party validation to support ad sales efforts.

Key product features include:

• Measurement of display ad impressions based on delivery to actual people, as opposed to cookies or spiders.
• A full range of advertising metrics that provide insights into share of voice, ad clutter, ad-exposed audience, reach/frequency and GRPs.
• Images of the actual creative used by advertisers, including information such as ad type and size.
• Insights into socially-enabled and socially-published ads (see section below for a detailed description).
• Granular classification that provides the ability to analyze advertising at the brand, category or product-level.

Top 10 Online Display Ad Publishers

Facebook.com ranked as the top display ad publisher in Australia during the month of January, delivering 3.6 billion display ad impressions (23.0 percent market share) that reached nearly 10.3 million people online. Microsoft Sites ranked second with nearly 2.6 billion display ads (16.5 percent share), followed by Google Sites with 943 million display ads (6.0 percent share) and Yahoo! Sites with 621 million display ads (4.0 percent share).

*Reflects display advertising only, excludes small ads and house ads (<2,500 pixels in dimension).
**Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Top 10 Online Display Advertisers

The ranking of the top 10 display advertisers features brands from a variety of advertiser categories. IAC - InterActiveCorp, driven largely by its Match.com brand, was the leading online display advertiser in January with 275.8 million ad impressions (1.8 percent market share) and reached 7.7 million people. National Australia Bank ranked second with 214.4 million display ad impressions (1.4 percent), followed by be2 with 190.1 million impressions (1.2 percent) and Weight Watchers International Inc. with 183 million display ad impressions (1.2 percent share).

*Reflects display advertising only, excludes small ads and house ads (<2,500 pixels in dimension).
**Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Socially-Published and Socially-Enabled Ads

A key component of Comscore Ad Metrix is visibility into the growing use of socially-published and socially-enabled ads. Socially-published ads refer to any brand’s display ads that appear on social networking sites, such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Socially-enabled ads are IAB standard display ads that can be clicked through to Facebook or other social networking sites. Increasingly, brands are utilizing these social calls-to-action in their display ad campaigns as a means of bolstering their social media presence.

In Australia, 24.7 percent of all display ad impressions were socially published in January 2012, while 10.5 percent of ad impressions were socially enabled. In the case of the McDonald’s Corporation, more than half (57.0 percent) of its display ads delivered during January were socially-enabled, while 54.4 percent of its display ads were published on social networking sites.

Learn More about Comscore Ad Metrix

To learn more about Comscore Ad Metrix in Australia, please contact learnmore@comscore.com. Attending ad:tech Sydney 2012? Visit Comscore at booth 55 to find out more about this service and other Comscore solutions.

About Comscore

Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Contact:
Sarah Radwanick
Director, Regional Product Marketing
Comscore, Inc.
+44 (0) 20 7099 1784
worldpress@comscore.com