Competition Heats Up in Competitive Ad Intelligence Field

AdRelevance said it has launched a new service designed to provide Web marketers “with the most complete and accurate data available” on competitive online advertising.

Meanwhile, a start-up called Leading Web Advertisers (LWA) reportedly plans a somewhat similar new ad tracking and reporting service that will provide details on a competitor’s Web marketing efforts, including where the ads run, for how long and at what cost.

Using the AdRelevance Service, marketers can run reports by individual advertiser, Web site location, creative, time period, impressions, and rate card-equivalent spending, the company said.

At launch the new service offers data for eight industries including PC and consumer electronics hardware, software, automotive, telecommunications, financial services, travel, Web media companies and e-retailers.

“Until today, there’s been no definitive way for companies to support their online advertising strategy using accurate data,” said AdRelevance President and CEO Will Hodgman.

“Information based on polling methodologies have offered answers to some of the questions relating to demographics and usage but fall short when it comes to reporting on and analyzing hard data.”

The new service also enables customers to view and archive Web-based creative advertising campaigns by either brand or product, the company said.

Charter customers include leading national advertising agencies McCann/Anderson & Lembke, Dahlin Smith White, TeamOne, Deutsche, Magnet Interactive and StarCom IP.

The service is powered by the company’s proprietary Online Media Network Intelligent Agent Collection, or OMNIAC, technology.

It combs the commercial universe of the Web 24 hours a day, capturing detailed data about advertising banners, buttons and text links.

Once collected, the data is warehoused, classified, statistically analyzed and correlated to AdRelevance’s Web traffic data.

Founded in late 1998, AdRelevance is a privately held information technology company that specializes in the automated retrieval, classification, analysis and delivery of online marketing data.

LWA will launch its Web advertisement monitoring service in late September, according to a report from ChannelSeven.com.

The company says it has its own proprietary monitoring system that allows any company to gather competitive Internet advertising activity reports that include data such as advertising occurrences, audience estimates and spending estimates.

“We want to be a one-stop shop for ad info on the Web,” Michael Kubin, director at LWA, was quoted as saying.

“Where ads ran, what advertisers are spending: these are what people want to know and we take the mystery out of it.” More details are available he re.