Web's rising appeal for credit card hawks

'The credit card industry is the only one that has publicly stated that its response rates declined from 2 percent to 0.35 percent, which happens to be exactly where the internet response rates are at.'

Web's rising appeal
for credit card hawks

Direct-mail responses falling even before anthrax

By Marty Beard

    Concerned over anthrax, consumers around the country are donning rubber gloves and tossing out unsolicited mail.
    That often includes credit card come-ons, and banks, facing free-falling response rates, are turning more than ever to the web to win over new credit-card customers.
    "As the economy and our current anthrax scare get out of control, it will become even more attractive for most people to look at the ROI figures of online, which are going to outweigh by far any other avenues of marketing," says Michael Tchong, president and CEO of e-marketing news site Iconocast.
    For the week ending Oct. 14, a relative newcomer, First Premier Bank of South Dakota, was one of the top-10 advertisers on the internet, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
    First Premier generated 126 million banner and button impressions, and its messages were exposed to a unique audience of more than 3.1 million people, roughly 4 percent of the universe of active internet users.
    Its banners, which tout unsecured Visas and MasterCards, appeared on many top ad domains, among them No. 4 musiccity.com and No. 13 netzero.net.
    Another major bank advertiser was Providian Financial Corp., by now an established web presence. It ranked as the No. 3 online advertiser for the week, with 368 million banner and button impressions. It reached a unique audience of more than 28.8 million people, or 38 percent of active internet users, making its ad among the most widely seen on the internet.
    With its major web push, First Premier joins the ranks of NextCard and Bank One, which have been heavy web advertisers for several years now, in addition to Providian Financial.
    Unlike so many web advertisers, banks are less interested in branding than in generating click-throughs that lead to new customers.
    And while click-throughs have tumbled across the web, their numbers now appear to be competitive with the response rates of printed direct mail.
    The volume of mailed credit-card solicitations increased to an all-time high in 2000, to 3.5 billion pieces, but as volumes have risen, response rates have steadily sunk.
    "The credit card industry is the only one that has publicly stated that its response rates declined from 2 percent to 0.35 percent, which happens to be exactly where the internet response rates are at," Tchong says. "So that tells me that off-line is indeed about as effective as online direct marketing at best."
    Internet advertising is also considerably cheaper.
    "I’ve seen some remarkable case studies that show as much as a 20-to-1 advantage in cost-per-acquisition versus traditional direct mail," Tchong says.
    "For a marketer who’s very bottom-line oriented, especially in this day and age, it’s going to be impossible to pass on that."

Top 25 Properties
Property	Unique Audience (000)	Reach %	Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1. AOL Time Warner	39,862	51.9	0:16:39
2. Yahoo	31,826	41.5	0:26:25
3. MSN	29,523	38.5	0:22:55
4. Microsoft	10,504	13.7	0:04:52
5. Lycos Network	9,265	12.1	0:08:01
6. eBay	7,581	9.9	0:37:12
7. Walt Disney Internet Group	7,081	9.2	0:13:26
8. Excite@Home	6,906	9.0	0:13:23
9. Google	6,615	8.6	0:06:29
10. Amazon	6,108	8.0	0:07:29
11. About-Primedia	5,760	7.5	0:05:16
12. eUniverse Network	5,564	7.3	0:09:00
13. InfoSpace	4,142	5.4	0:04:43
14. CNET Networks	3,992	5.2	0:06:11
15. American Greetings	3,898	5.1	0:07:32
16. Ask Jeeves	3,870	5.0	0:05:49
17. ClassMates Online	3,476	4.5	0:03:39
18. AT&T	3,443	4.5	0:11:00
19. EarthLink	3,245	4.2	0:07:38
20. iWon	3,048	4.0	0:25:28
21. Gator.com	2,927	3.8	0:05:06
22. Vivendi Universal	2,897	3.8	0:09:26
23. EA Online	2,662	3.5	1:12:05
24. iVillage	2,496	3.3	0:08:30
25. Homestead.com	2,292	3.0	0:03:58
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

Top 10 Advertisers
Advertiser	Banner & Button Impressions (000)	Unique Audience (000)	Active Reach (%)
1. Microsoft	770,102	25,980	33.85
2. AOL Time Warner	681,660	29,896	38.96
3. Providian Financial Corp.	368,263	28,800	37.53
4. Yahoo	356,256	21,215	27.64
5. eBay	339,955	20,894	27.23
6. Classmates Online	192,467	18,748	24.43
7. Orbitz	136,948	15,690	20.44
8. First Premier Bank of South Dakota	126,487	3,120	4.07
9. Zairmail Inc.	121,844	1,727	2.25
10. Amazon.Com Inc.	116,584	19,019	24.78
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

Top 25 Domains
Domain	Unique Audience (000)	Reach %	Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1. yahoo.com	30,063	39.2	0:26:49
2. aol.com	28,581	37.2	0:13:26
3. msn.com	26,521	34.6	0:20:13
4. passport.com	13,919	18.1	0:02:42
5. microsoft.com	10,005	13.0	0:04:48
6. ebay.com	7,076	9.2	0:37:42
7. netscape.com	7,065	9.2	0:09:47
8. go.com	6,873	9.0	0:13:37
9. google.com	6,611	8.6	0:06:29
10. geocities.com	6,566	8.6	0:04:29
11. amazon.com	5,762	7.5	0:06:59
12. cnn.com	5,554	7.2	0:11:03
13. excite.com	5,358	7.0	0:14:55
14. msnbc.com	4,269	5.6	0:09:15
15. classmates.com	3,476	4.5	0:03:39
16. lycos.com	3,392	4.4	0:09:40
17. about.com	3,273	4.3	0:03:59
18. iwon.com	3,048	4.0	0:25:28
19. tripod.com	3,024	3.9	0:05:14
20. gator.com	2,921	3.8	0:05:04
21. earthlink.net	2,897	3.8	0:07:41
22. compuserve.com	2,815	3.7	0:16:49
23. angelfire.com	2,698	3.5	0:03:34
24. att.net	2,452	3.2	0:11:56
25. homestead.com	2,292	3.0	0:03:58
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

Top 25 Advertising Domains
Domain	Banner Impressions (000)	Active Reach (%)
1. msn.com	1,090,517	30.88
2. yahoo.com	1,083,733	32.81
3. aol.com	399,222	30.33
4. musiccity.com	256,451	2.27
5. ebay.com	181,007	5.95
6. netscape.com	130,675	7.03
7. att.net	48,232	2.55
8. pogo.com	100,712	2.6
9. cnn.com	51,666	5.35
10. go.com	84,655	6.8
11. monster.com	75,558	1.93
12. lycos.com	76,705	3.56
13. netzero.net	30,675	1.43
14. msnbc.com	35,034	5.62
15. compuserve.com	28,983	2.67
16. fastclick.net	21,232	4.87
17. cnet.com	20,743	2.24
18. looksmart.com	25,019	2.08
19. mapquest.com	22,599	2.52
20. nytimes.com	13,716	1.31
21. excite.com	24,185	0.81
22. qksz.net	10,358	1.42
23. juno.com	10,263	0.48
24. drudgereport.com	11,672	0.8
25. audiogalaxy.com	23,722	1.08
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

Top Ten Banners
Advertiser	Unique Audience (000)	Active Reach (%)	Banner Impressions (000)
1. Providian Financial Corp.	11,154	14.53	49,780
2. Classmates Online	10,004	13.04	107,402
3. Orbitz	8,100	10.55	51,792
4. Debticated Consumer Counseling	8,016	10.45	30,732
5. eDiets	7,943	10.35	14,709
6. Providian Financial Corp.	7,689	10.02	31,500
7. Bonzi Software	7,276	9.48	60,954
8. Debticated Consumer Counseling	6,987	9.1	26,956
9. Providian Financial Corp.	6,935	9.04	18,103
10. Providian Financial Corp.	6,182	8.06	16,132
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

Average Usage
	Current Week	Last Week	% Change
Number of Sessions per Week	6	6	0
Page Views per Week	221	219	0.91
Page Views per Surfing Session	36	35	2.86
Time Spent per Week	3:21:07	3:18:23	1.37
Time Spent During Surfing Session	0:32:21	0:31:49	1.68
Duration a Page Viewed	0:00:54	0:00:55	-1.14
Active Internet Universe	76,741,824	75,663,613	1.43
Current Internet Universe Estimate	170,187,247	170,631,543	-0.26
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.

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