IAR Bits and Bytes for October 31, 2003

BPA and I/PRO to Audit Online Subscriptions

Business of Performing Audits (BPA) International, the Shelton, Conn.-based nonprofit that provides audited audience information, teamed with Web audience auditor I/PRO to offer a new product designed to validate a publisher’s online subscription base in the same way BPA audits print magazine and newspaper publishers’ circulation numbers. BPA Interactive Subscription Audit by I/PRO will also provide third-party validation of the number of visitors who have accessed a site’s password-protected content. The new product will help publishers, advertisers, and advertising agencies know whether their ads are reaching the correct audience, San Francisco, Calif.-based I/PRO said.

Consumer spending on paid content online in the first half of 2003 increased by 22 percent over the previous year, according to the Online Publishers Association. Nearly 90 percent of all content sales are done via subscriptions, according to its report. I/PRO hopes its BPA Interactive Subscription Audit will help online publishers charge premium prices for ads shown to subscribers.

Back in June, the two companies agreed to merge their interactive audit offerings.

PointRoll Offers New Branding Metrics

PointRoll said its provision of enhanced metrics will allow advertises to quantify their online ads’ branding value.

The Fort Washington, Penn.-based rich media technology vendor provides FatBoy expanding banner technology used by AOL, Yahoo!, and MSN, along with interaction rates. Metrics can now be broken into multiple criteria.

PointRoll considers FatBoys permission-based ads because they don’t expand until users mouse over them. FatBoys generate data that can be viewed in the company’s AdTracker via several canned reports and aggregations. Now advertisers will be able to see many more advanced metrics, such as average panels per interaction and average brand interaction time on each creative unit. The branding metrics will remain free to clients.