Survey: Traffic Transparency Would Help Internet Advertising

Web TrafficA recent survey by the market research company Real Opinions shows that 87% of those involved in advertising or marketing for their organisations in the Middle East said that transparency in website visitor numbers and profiles of visitors would be influential in increasing their usage of the Internet for advertising.

Put into perspective, 58% claim their budgets for marketing and advertising have decreased, but the current economic climate has encouraged them to look online for maximizing their impact, with 37% claiming their interest in the Internet has increased (50% claim no change).

Dan Healy, the CEO of Real Opinions who conducted the survey commented, ‘With decreasing budgets, organisations appear to be looking around for new paradigms in which to conduct their advertising and marketing activities to help them reach their goals. They are looking at the Internet advertising industry and websites to help them justify a new approach.’

‘As the Internet allows users to follow their special interests, websites have the ability to accurately show how unique their visitors are and how it can match an advertiser’s target market they wish to reach with communication. It’s shouldn’t just be how many visitors a website receives, advertisers want to know the profile of these people. This in turn can provide a very cost efficient advertising model for many organisations to achieve the return on investment they seek in this economic climate,’ Dan added.

Mobile Internet Users On The Rise In The Middle East

Mobile InternetMore Middle East business people used mobile devices to hook on to the internet last month, compared with February 2007, while fewer used computers, a just released survey showed.

The survey, presented to the Digital Marketing Conference in Dubai by the Dubai-based research company Real Opinions, said computers were still by far the main way to connect to the internet.

The percentage who regularly logged in to the web with their mobiles increased from 33.5 per cent to 40 per cent.

Numbers of people using desktops to log in decreased from 63.50 per cent to 58.93 per cent, while those using laptops slid from 82.80 per cent to 81.35 per cent.

Mr Dan Healy, the chief executive of Real Opinions, said mobile device users tended to be professionals and high-end targets for advertisers.

“This is a select group of business internet users,” he said. “These are people with authority and relatively high disposable income, which are the target group for the travel industry, the hotels and the airlines. “This gives advertisers more creative ways to access them.”

The survey, of 446 business internet users in the region, also found they spend far more time using the internet than they do with any other kind of media.
The survey said users spent an average of 3.51 hours a day surfing online, compared with 2.28 hours watching television.

But it found that, while internet use dominated other media in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon, radio was stronger in the morning rush hour, and television was stronger in the evening.

Most respondents, 58 per cent, said the current economic climate had affected their organisation’s budget for marketing and advertising, but 37 per cent also said it had increased their organisation’s interest in internet marketing.

[Source: The National]