ChoiceStream’s January Cost Calendar Breaks Stride With Travel and Automotive Categories Topping The List in 2014
Gifting Giving & Trips to the Mediterranean Become the Highest Cost Audience Segments in December
Boston, MA – ChoiceStream, the top choice for brand advertisers interested in advanced target optimization and programmatic buying, today announced the next installment of its Audience Cost Calendar – a monthly exploration of media buying costs, segment trends and predictions that stem from ChoiceStream’s Audience Cost Index.
As predicted in last month’s report, Holiday and Events: Gift Giving Holidays continued to be the most expensive segments with travel destinations and automotive brands following closely. Top ranking automotive brands in December were Jeep (#312), Volkswagen (#298), Chrysler (#294) and Audi (#288), a small shift away from the luxury brands that topped the list throughout most of the year.
Travel continued to perform well in December 2013 with Mediterranean destinations including Portugal (#310), Italy (#308), Greece (#307) Spain (#277) making the list of top ten most expensive audience segments.
“With the end of 2013, ChoiceStream also closed the first full year of reporting on the relative costs of online audiences,” said Bill Guild, VP Marketing at ChoiceStream. “This milestone enables us to focus more on cyclical trends; the holiday season was no surprise with the gift giving segment becoming more expensive. 2013 Gift Giving was even more expensive and clearly more of a priority than in November and December of 2012. Additionally, shopping for toys appears to be more focused around back-to-school season than the holiday gift giving season – which was somewhat unexpected.”
Another trend includes advertisers’ interest in last minute value shoppers, which surged while fall sports began to fade. Interestingly, advertisers’ demand for football fans has dropped even though the play-offs are in full swing. This is relatively surprising considering the advertising investment that is made during the Super Bowl each year.
To view the full infographic and the most active categories for the month of December, take a look at ChoiceStream’s Audience Cost Calendar that can be found here.
Methodology
ChoiceStream tracks approximately 315 segments. Tracked segments are rollups of similar segments from multiple data providers including ChoiceStream’s Pollshare. Each segment receives a calculated index with the monthly average price set at 100. An index of 110 indicates that the segment traded 10 percent higher than the overall average that month. Beginning this month ChoiceStream has changed the way it calculates the audience rankings by reporting the cheapest segment (also referred to as the cheapest price index) as number one, and a higher price index will correspond with a higher-ranking number.
About ChoiceStream
ChoiceStream improves ad relevance and digital campaign performance by programmatically selecting optimum advertising opportunities based on a dynamic understanding of consumers’ active preferences. With an extensive first and third party data network enhanced by proprietary data, ChoiceStream can target and convert the most valuable consumer in real-time. ChoiceStream is headquartered in the Innovation District of Boston and works with industry leading brands and their agencies. For more information on ChoiceStream, please visit www.ChoiceStream.com.
