Business-To-Business Advertisers Rush To The Internet; New AdRelevance Report Examines Rapid Growth of B2B Ads As Businesses Advertise Their Presence Online.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 20, 2000

With business-to-business e-commerce outpacing business-to-consumer transactions on the Internet, it's no surprise that online advertising has begun to show a decidedly B2B bias.

In fact, the growth in online advertising by B2B companies has outstripped all other industries for the last four months, according to the latest findings from AdRelevance from Media Metrix (Nasdaq:MMXI), an innovator in Internet advertising measurement and ad tracking technology.

The company's latest AdRelevance Intelligence Report, titled "Business Is Booming," examines the growth of B2B advertising online as well as the unique advertising patterns of companies targeting a business audience. A complete version of the report can be viewed online at http://www.adrelevance.com/intelligence/intel_center.jsp.

Among the key findings revealed in this month's AdRelevance Intelligence Report are the following:

-- The number of business-to-business companies advertising online has
increased 58 percent over the last four months, compared with an average of
only 17 percent for all other industries (see Table A).

-- In the same period, B2B advertisers have increased ad spending by 66 percent
based on average number of ad impressions per company.

-- In the fourth quarter of 1999, business-to-business banner advertising
accounted for approximately 1.9 billion ad impressions -- or 5 percent of
online advertising overall.

-- The majority of B2B online advertising focuses on technology: 62 percent of
all B2B ads feature such products and services as Web design, e-commerce
security, network hardware, domain registration and related business technology
(see Table B).


    Table A: Industry Growth Rates (October 1999 to February 2000)

                       Increase in No.     Increase in Average No.
      Industry          of Companies     of Impressions per Company
      --------         --------------    --------------------------
Business to Business        58%                    66%
Travel                      45%                    19%
Software                    39%                    22%
Retail                      30%                    26%
Web Media                   26%                    29%
Financial Services          13%                    40%
Telecommunications           6%                    45%
Consumer Goods               4%                    38%
Automotive                  -2%                    44%
Hardware & Electronics     -10%                    34%

Terms: "Industry" refers to a sector of commerce; AdRelevance
currently tracks 10 industries to which advertisements are assigned.
"Impression" refers to the number of times an ad is rendered for
viewing by a user.

    Table B: Business-to-Business Advertising by Industry Segment

                         Growth in Companies     Change in Share
                         -------------------     ---------------
                                      New                   Share
                        Number of  Companies   Share of     Change
  Business Segments     Companies  Since Oct  Impressions  Since Oct
  -----------------     ---------  ---------  -----------  ---------
Web Design/Domain Registr.   107       46         28%        -4%
Business Technology           73        6         20%         7%
E-Commerce Support/Security   50        7         14%         4%
Advertising & Marketing       46       19         12%         4%
Equip./Materials Suppliers    55       30          8%         2%
Consulting                    71       36          5%        -1%
Business Datacommunications   48       17          3%        -2%
Business Finance              16        5          3%        -3%
Strategies & Information      26        5          2%        -1%
Business Portals              20        6          2%        -3%
Shipping                       3        0          2%        -3%
Syndicated Content Providers   4        2          1%         0%
Recruiting                     9        4          0%         0%

Terms: "Segment" refers to a grouping of companies according to
the primary focus of their commercial activity. "Share of Impressions"
refers to the number of impressions as a percentage of total
impressions.

According to Charles Buchwalter, vice president of media research for AdRelevance, the rapid growth of business-to-business advertising is a natural result of the year-long rush to the Internet by B2B companies forging new ground in e-commerce.

"Last year we saw a boom in commercial activity on the Internet as business-to-business e-commerce became the focus of hundreds of companies looking to stake claims in new territory," he said. "Now that so many companies in the B2B sector have a presence online, it makes sense for them to advertise there. It's the equivalent of putting up billboards across from the new industrial park: you reach your customers where they work, and in this case, they're working online."

In fact, AdRelevance data suggests that the majority of B2B advertising is taking place outside the consumer corridors of mainstream Net traffic. Although all industries are more likely to advertise on portals and search engines, B2B advertisers are relatively less likely to do so than their B2C counterparts. Similarly, business-to-business companies are more likely to advertise on computer/technology, business/finance and general news sites where business-to-consumer companies are relatively scarce (see Tables C and D).

  Table C: Site Genres with Higher Concentration of B2B Advertising

                                Share of Impressions
                                --------------------
    Site Genre            B2B      All Others    Difference
    ----------            ---      ----------    ----------
Computing & Technology    9.9%        3.2%         +6.7%
Business & Finance        2.5%        1.1%         +1.5%
General News              2.2%        1.8%         +0.4%

Table D:  Site Genres with Lower Concentration of B2B Advertising

                                Share of Impressions
                                --------------------
    Site Genre            B2B      All Others    Difference
    ----------            ---      ----------    ----------
Games                     1.4%        2.0%         -0.6%
Kids & Family             0.1%        0.8%         -0.7%
Portal, Community,       78.2%       83.7%         -5.5%
     & Search Engines

Terms: "Genre" refers to a group of sites with similar content
and/or function. Data for both tables was collected between
January 24-February 14, 2000.

As Buchwalter points out, these numbers correspond to recent Media Metrix data that indicates work users are more likely to browse news, financial and technology sites, while home users frequent portals and search engines.

"B2B companies are clearly targeting sites that cater to the work user," he said. "Though the bulk of their advertising dollars are still spent at portals and search engines, they're much more likely to choose business-oriented sites than are advertisers in other industries."

AdRelevance Intelligence Reports

AdRelevance Intelligence Reports are released monthly and are designed to provide customers, news media, and industry watchers with a timely perspective on the rapidly changing landscape of online advertising.

AdRelevance Intelligence reports are compiled by the company's Media Research Group, who analyze data collected from AdRelevance's proprietary ad tracking service. Each member of the team brings industry-specific expertise to their analyses as well as an understanding of marketing strategies and Internet technology.

The AdRelevance Service

The AdRelevance Service provides Web advertisers, agencies and publishers with marketing intelligence that tells them when, where and how competitors and potential clients are advertising on the Web. Using AdRelevance, Web publishers can generate advertising sales leads in real time, while ad agencies and Web marketers can track competitors' Web advertising placements, expenditures and creative. The company tracks over 93 percent of all online advertising and classifies it into 10 industries including automotive, business-to-business, consumer goods, financial services, hardware and electronics, retail, software, telecommunications, travel and Web media.

The service enables clients to quickly and easily run reports that illustrate competitive advertising activity by a range of criteria including advertiser, product, industry, industry segment, Web site location, creative content, time period and technology. Reports can also be run to track impression numbers, unique ads and rate card-equivalent spending.

AdRelevance Technology

The AdRelevance Service is powered by the company's proprietary Online Media Network Intelligent Agent (OMNIAC(tm)) technology. This technology systematically searches commercial sites on the Web and captures detailed data about advertising 24 hours a day, seven days a week. By evaluating over 3,000 Web sites and sub-sites daily and 40 million page views per month, the AdRelevance Service provides in-depth advertising and tracking information unavailable anywhere else. The OMNIAC technology was developed by the company's core development team, including engineers best known for developing the MetaCrawler search technology currently licensed to Go2Net and Jango.

About AdRelevance

Founded in 1998, AdRelevance, Inc., based in Seattle, was Acquired in October 1999 by Media Metrix, Inc. (NASDAQ:MMXI), the pioneer and leader in Internet and Digital Media measurement. Using the AdRelevance Service, advertisers gain access to up-to-date intelligence about their competitors' online advertising programs, enabling them to quickly and easily compare and report information by a wide range of criteria including advertiser, product, industry, location, technology and creative content. More information on the company and a free trial of the service is available at www.adrelevance.com or by calling 1-888-649-6540.