WebAdvantage.net Poll Reveals 87 Percent Dissatisfaction Among Online Media Buyers

Business Wire, May 11, 2005

HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. -- WebAdvantage.net (http://www.webadvantage.net), a full service Internet advertising and search marketing agency, reveals the results of its informal industry poll of online media buyers' satisfaction rate with the sites from which they attempt to buy advertising. The poll has found that 87 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with their online media buying experience 50 percent of the time or more. Respondents also say their Number One source of frustration is slow response time or unmet deadlines by their media reps when they're trying to put together online media plans. Sites the media buyers have no previous relationship with are the poorest performers; 53 percent of respondents say these sites respond too late or not at all 25 to 50 percent of the time. Sites that only provide contact forms for online media buyers generate the lowest expectations; 60 percent of respondents say they dislike these forms but complete them anyway with low expectations for a response. Buyers' open-ended complaints range from "reps don't pay attention to the details on the RFP about targets" to "reps seem to only care about the sale and not about trying help ailing campaigns." Full survey results can be found at http://tinyurl.com/7pjys.> "The results of our survey are quite telling," said agency president, Hollis Thomases. "If web site publishers don't address the chronic problem of poorly servicing the very buyers they're trying to serve, they could suffer serious backlash as the Internet advertising industry continues its resurgence."

Founded in 1998, WebAdvantage.net is a private company with a staff of eleven. Its core competencies include online advertising campaign planning and execution, search engine optimization and paid search campaign management. Company president Hollis Thomases is regular columnist with ClickZ on the subject of agency strategies for online media buyers and a national public speaker at Internet-related conferences and educational events. For more information, visit WebAdvantage.net's web site at http://www.webadvantage.net or call 410-942-0488.