TechTarget Launches ''TargetROI: Brand'' Online Branding and Measurement Program; Newest ROI-focused Program Enables Clients to Easily Quantify Increases in Brand Awareness and Consideration Effected by Online Banner Advertising

Business Wire, Sept 29, 2005

NEEDHAM, Mass. -- Information technology (IT) publisher TechTarget announced today the launch of "TargetROI: Brand," a managed online branding and measurement program designed to enable IT marketers to measure shifts in key attributes of brand consideration and awareness effected by targeted online display advertising. The program includes a ten-week campaign of targeted online display advertising and an online survey to assess the effectiveness of the campaign in increasing key measures of branding impact, from brand awareness to brand favorability and purchase consideration. Each TargetROI: Brand program is managed from beginning to end by TechTarget's Client Consulting Services department, a team of media and advertising professionals focused on helping IT marketers achieve their advertising goals and maximize their ROI on TechTarget media buys. The online survey is conducted in collaboration with third-party marketing research firm Dynamic Logic.

In a separate release issued today, TechTarget announced that in a limited rollout to several TechTarget clients, the TargetROI: Brand program enabled PolyServe, a vendor of server-consolidation software, to quantify dramatic shifts in awareness and consideration resulting from its TargetROI: Brand campaign for its Matrix Server solutions. The campaign, which ran for three months on SearchStorage.com, delivered increases (deltas)(a) for Aided Brand Awareness and Purchase Intent ranked "excellent" in comparison to other technology campaigns within MarketNorms(R), Dynamic Logic's syndicated marketing effectiveness database of campaign-performance benchmark data, which includes results from surveys of more than 2 million respondents spanning nearly 2,000 online ad campaigns. The increases in all other brand metrics ranked "above average or better" when compared to results of other technology campaigns within MarketNorms.

"When IT marketers tie their media buys to performance, TechTarget comes out ahead," said TechTarget CEO Greg Strakosch. "That's why we've led the industry in creating programs that allow our advertisers to easily measure performance and determine ROI. With TargetROI: Brand, we've extended this commitment to branding campaigns, where performance data has historically been difficult to capture or quantify. We're proud to the be the first IT publisher to offer a fully managed online brand advertising and measurement program to make it easy for clients to evaluate the performance of brand advertising on our highly targeted sites."

"Effective brand advertising helps build a foundation of awareness that eases the conversion process for future leads," said Rich Bruer, principal, McClenahan Bruer Communications, which developed the creative for PolyServe's TargetROI: Brand campaign. "But many companies, especially emerging companies with tight resources, are reluctant to spend on brand advertising because it's difficult to measure performance. It didn't surprise me that TechTarget was the first IT publisher not only to encourage customers to apply concrete performance metrics to branding campaigns, but to provide them with the means to do so. Together with Dynamic Logic, TechTarget built a very sophisticated measurement component into its TargetROI: Brand program, which enabled us to see conclusively that banners on sites reaching targeted, qualified audiences are effective branding and advertising vehicles."

"As the provider of a software-based solution in a market dominated by big-name vendors offering big appliances, we recognize the power of brand advertising in allowing us to communicate a unique branding message to the right audience," said Jeff Day, product marketing manager, PolyServe. "It was critical for us to substantiate the effectiveness and determine the ROI for our campaigns. The TargetROI: Brand campaign not only allowed us to reach a very qualified audience with strong creative, but enabled us to prove demonstrably that targeted banner advertising can create enormous shifts in brand awareness and purchase intent, as well as other important brand metrics. We now have the quantitative data we need to justify future branding campaigns on TechTarget sites."

About TechTarget

TechTarget publishes integrated media that enable information-technology (IT) marketers to reach targeted communities of IT professionals and executives in all phases of the technology decision-making and purchase process. Through its industry-leading media and events, and its ROI-focused programs and services, TechTarget helps IT marketers generate qualified sales leads, shorten sales cycles and grow revenues. TechTarget is among Inc. 500's fastest-growing private companies in the United States. TechTarget's more than 2,500 advertisers include the leading IT companies in the world, among them, IBM, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Intel. More information about TechTarget is available at www.techtarget.com

Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms(R) findings are aggregate in nature and reflect past results. They are not a guarantee of future results for individual campaigns.