IAMCI - Industry Index for Internet Advertisers

Today, work on the formation of the IAMCI index has ended. Tsiferki, examples of use, all this will be literally the other day; The following text is an announcement from which, probably, it is not enough clear what exactly happened, but it is relatively clear what exactly was being done. And someone does not understand, I guess. Of course, by the end of the week there will be examples of using the index - everything will be much clearer. Yes, not to forget to say. The IAMCI index for October is 4193.06.



The tasks that we faced come from a simple set of problems.



1. Pricing on individual advertising sites occurs spontaneously, with some reference to the current situation, but on the whole is chaotic. Pricing for a new player, especially if he claims to have a certain market share, is written in many ways from the ceiling and has big problems in defending his position in front of the investor. In this case, overestimation or underestimation of projects can result in significant problems.

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2. Agencies involved in online advertising do not have the opportunity to argue the choice of media positions to the customer, referring to some data independent of them, which leads to a chaotic change in the initial plan by the customer. The lack of arguments and research base in the customer creates a feeling of "shamanism" or, worse, affiliate choice.



3. Customers do not have the opportunity to evaluate the media plans offered to them other than on the basis of their own emotional sensations, which ultimately leads to the fact that, for example, in a tender situation, media plans are accepted that the customer seems to be profitable, but in fact may not be so.



Until today, there was no tool in our market that would allow us to track the general trends of the main indicators of the industry and which would allow us to evaluate and compare individual promotional offers, which is not possible in a normal situation due to their heterogeneity.



On the other hand, there were no tools on the market that would allow anything to be said about market trends in general. All we have is a relatively consistent, expert assessments and a general intuitive understanding of the main players. It is possible to use this data in media planning, and, sometimes more fundamentally, in protecting media projects, but extremely awkwardly.



On the third hand, we wanted to have a research tool, the results of which would have had independent value for the market.



IAMCI - Internet Advertising Market Cost Index (read as YMSI) is calculated as a summary measure for a selected list of sites, which is calculated from the following indicators:

• Advertising space
  
  Cost of advertising space
  
  Ad traffic
  
  Cost of advertising traffic
  
  Ad traffic distribution
  
  
  
  
  
  As a matter of fact, it is clear that the index figure has no absolute value. The index allows you to do several useful things:
  
  
  • Track baseline dynamics and, more importantly, mutual relative dynamics
    
    Track the dynamics of individual cases that are methodologically related to the index.
    
    Compare particular cases that are methodologically related to the index
    
    Something I probably missed
    
    
    
    
    
    Let's translate all of the above into Russian, at the same time we apply what is happening to our specific index.
    
    
    
    So. What exactly does the index track? Iamci
    
    Now let's see what exactly we can do with his help and why.
    
    
    
    There is an old method, how to compare a Chinese and a bicycle. At first glance, this is not possible, but there is a formal solution. It is necessary to create a Chinese Cycling, and then compare the Chinese with a Cycling Chinese and a bicycle with a Cycling Chinese. The composite index is methodologically and such a Chinese.
    
    
    
    1. Index dynamics.
    
    This indicator, which will be calculated once a month so far, is generally not of great practical importance, except from the point of view of research. It is clear that large fluctuations in it will reflect the fluctuations of the industry itself, while growth or decline will reflect some objective processes going on in the industry. The index is constructed in such a way that its rise or fall does not automatically mean a deterioration or improvement of the situation as a whole.
    
    
    
    2. Relative dynamics of baseline indicators.
    
    These sets of indicators, on the contrary, are quite informative even for an incompetent observer. The calculation using a special formula allows you to show, for example, that the cost of advertising space grows faster than the cost of traffic, and the volume of advertising space practically does not grow at all. We can also track the dynamics of these relationships, considering, for example, that the share of traffic influence in summer is greater than in winter. As a result, we get a tool that, with a clear trend, allows for forward planning within a significant time frame.
    
    
    
    3. Dynamics of special cases.
    
    Today we have compiled a certain list of those particular cases that we want to count on regularly, relative to the IAMCI index, the dynamics of which, in our opinion, are of public interest. This, for example, the dynamics of segmental indices, calculated by the conjugate method and compared with IAMCI. Such dynamics allows you to track how the involvement of individual market segments in the total activity changes, as far as the price indicators of the segment are ahead or lagging behind the general market ones.
    
    
    
    It is clear that, in principle, we can calculate the dynamics of almost any market processes that can be described through the above data. We form a set of really socially significant, I think it will take some time, again, we are interested in the opinion of other market participants.
    
    
    
    4. Comparison of special cases.
    
    In the same example, it’s clear that the presence of an index makes it possible to compare individual special cases, the comparison of which in the normal mode is not obvious. With the help of the index and the prepared techniques, today we are able to make comparisons between various artifacts, for example, to compare the price indicators of individual advertising spaces within one site or separate advertising spaces on different websites. In this case, it already has a practical meaning, because it allows you to operate with an index during media planning, in particular, when protecting a media plan to the customer.
    
    
    
    I suspect that with the growth of experience with the index, we will formulate other opportunities that are not visible to us today. In any case, we have developed a powerful research tool that we think will find its place in the market. Today, we will probably need to make several calculators for public use, since the methods will not be openly published. After some time we plan to audit the compliance of the data published to the methods and subsequently put the audit process on a permanent basis, but I don’t fully understand how to do it correctly. Well, it's not cheap, in general.
    
    
    
    I will be happy to answer questions that I can - I will tell.