Smart AdServer Unveils the Results of its First Barometer on Advertising Banners

Ad Operations OnlineParis, 31 March 2009 – Smart AdServer, a leading player in Europe in adserving and digital marketing, today unveils the results of its first Smart AdMetrics barometer, which looks at the popularity and evolution of the main formats of interactive banners.

Carried out on the basis of data approved by its advertisers, agencies, advertising houses and publishers, that is to say several hundred billion displays for 2008, the conclusions of this first study were the following:



· The banner market is fragmented into forty advertising formats;

· Only 7 of these formats have been used every year since 2006;

· 728×90 and 300×250 between them represent almost two thirds of the market share;

· A historic format, 468×60, is on the point of disappearing;

· The average weight of banners has barely grown over the last four years, going from 27 to 32 Ko;

· The number of banners per page has remained relatively stable (2.3).

This first barometer is also the occasion to note the relative reduction of the surface or weight of banners. Even if the 728×90 is 50% larger than its predecessor (468×60), it represents no more than 6% of a screen having resolution such as the XSGA (1280×800), whereas a 468×60 banner took up around 9% of a VGA resolution screen (640×480).

Still according to the Smart AdMetrics barometer, the weight of a banner has grown slightly. For the most popular banners, this weight grew from fifteen kilobytes to around 30 kilobytes in 2009. At the same time, bandwidth available to Internet users grew almost tenfold, switching from modest 56 kb/s modems (7 Ko/s) to ADSL boxes with their minimum rate of 512 kb/s (64 Ko/s), that is to say an increase of more than 900%.

“At a time when certain online media have seen downward pressure on their CPM rates, calling into question the very basis of the entire online environment, the hour has now come to reinvent the banner, simply making it more visible and more creative. A reliable partner of agencies and advertising houses for more than a decade, Smart AdServer has placed its technology at the service of this aim”, says Cyrille Geffray, Managing Director of Smart AdServer.

About Smart AdServer (www.smartadserver.com)

Smart AdServer SAS develops and markets one of the main adserving technologies for the management of online campaigns for media agencies and publishers. Created in 2001, the company Smart AdServer has soon become a key player in France, posting the fastest growth in Europe in terms of customers compared with its competitors, thanks to the innovative and unique functionalities offered by its product, and its ease of use. Smart AdServer has 150 customers for 1200 sites spanning four continents.

Among its clients are large media agencies such as Zed digital, Starcom, Mindshare, Mediacom, Mediaedge:cia, Universal McCann, Brilliant Media … as well as a large number of sites and companies, including PIXmania, Toms’s Hardware (Bestof media US), Reed Business, Axel Springer Hungary & Poland, Radio Canada, MSD Global, Wolters Kluwer, La Vanguardia, Canal+, Curse Gaming, Amiado.