Web-based email services like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail generate the largest revenues from online advertising according to studies. However, the ads embedded directly in emails do not generate as much money as ads displayed on email service websites. While people spend a lot of time accessing their email accounts, users now allocate more time to online content and community sites. Determining the best placement for ads depends on targeting the right demographics and finding sites whose content is appropriate and will accept different ad types. Both email services and community sites can be good options depending on the specific advertising campaign.

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Are Web Mail Sites Best for Ads?
SEPTEMBER 11, 2007
It depends on who you are targeting.
The Web-based mail service Windows Live, formerly Hotmail, is a hot property for advertisers. So are
Yahoo! Mail, AOL and other e-mail services.
E-mail sites are by far the largest online advertising revenue generators, according to study by
Nielsen//NetRatings's AdRelevance, as cited in MarketingCharts.
"The e-mail numbers are all from ads that users see outside of the e-mail itself," said David Hallerman,
eMarketer senior analyst, "because the ads embedded in e-mail don't bring in that kind of revenue."
People use their e-mail accounts frequently, so it makes sense that advertisers would want their
placements there. E-mail sites are also good for viral campaigns. If a user likes an ad and wants to pass it
along, he or she is already at the right site to do so.
But is e-mail really where users spend the most time? An Online Publishers Association study found that
although Internet users in 2003 spent the most time on communications, including e-mail, they have since
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shifted priorities, putting content time on top.
Determining the right place for an ad depends on far more than a single statistic. It would be easy to say
that marketers should consider content sites for a greater proportion of their placements.
But many content sites are ill suited for particular campaigns, either because the site's demographics are
wrong, the content itself is objectionable, the site doesn't accept certain types of ads or other reasons.
E-mail sites, by contrast, tend to offer access to a variety of users without the context of objectionable ads.
Community sites are already drawing the second-greatest amount of ad revenue after e-mail sites,
according to Nielsen//NetRatings. With more content showing up on community sites, that figure is likely to
increase faster.
The eMarketer US Online Ad Spending report will be published in October 2007. Please click here to be
notified when it is released.
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