Website rankings whet advertising appetites

By IRENE CHAPPLE

Internet audience figures out last week are being touted as likely to help double the online advertising spend over the next year.

The rankings are the first produced by RedSheriff, which won a tender to supply the information after calls from an industry group.

They plug a gap left in the online advertising industry by the withdrawal of eRatings.com last year.

RedSheriff ranked Telecom's xtramsn.co.nz as New Zealand's most visited site, with 620,000 unique visitors within one week.

In second place was the New Zealand Herald's nzherald.co.nz with 170,000 over the same time. INL's stuff.co.nz ranked third, with 166,000 visitors, and TVNZ's nzoom.com placed fourth, with 147,000.

The information - vital for advertisers and media planners - has piqued interest in online advertising, says the Internet Bureau's John Stewart.

"Figures that have been bandied about before hype-drive statistics. It has made it difficult for [the clients]."

The RedSheriff figures, Stewart said, "give us consistent numbers, and I think do give the industry a lot more credibility".

Online advertising, now just $8 million to $10 million annually, could double year on year, he said.

"Online advertising has about 0.5 per cent penetration of the annual total media spend - that's next to nothing ... but more and more people are getting into it."

Colenso BBDO's online strategist, Polly Foot, said the figures would be used for analysis of past campaigns.

"From our perspective it's just a dream."