Don't Believe Everything You Read

Case in point.... I recently ran across a study conducted by PubMatic that was published on Clickz.com. According to the study, display advertising was suffering, and suffering badly.

The Title: Display Ad Prices Fall 50 Percent in Q4.

On the surface, the study seems pretty legit. The study, which looked at over 5,500 different websites found that "The price for advertising on Web sites of all sizes dropped by about 53 percent from Q4 2007 to Q4 2008, according to the index. The numbers also show that every vertical category suffered steep declines, with Business and Finance leading the way at 61 percent." This tells me that they had a pretty good sample size and they were looking across multiple verticals. Both of these facts made me think the study was on the up-and-up.

That said, I have run across recent reports showing that display advertising is actually gaining market share despite a down economy..... and have even experienced my own successes with display advertising (see my previous post). But, being a little skeptical, I dug a little deeper.

As I dug, the validity of this study, more importantly, the reality of what the study looked at shocked me. While never discussed in the article, the study included remnant inventory. That's right, this study included low-cost, bottom-tier ads that nobody wants. Being a closet research geek (thank you Jeff Rosenblum), this study is meaningless to me. There are simply too many questions that could affect the outcome and vailidity of the results. Fore example, how much of the data was based on remnant inventory? 10% 100%??? These kinds of studies infuriate me. They serve no other purpose than to mislead people by telling half-truths.

Lesson learned... Don't believe everything you read; especially online!