List Pricing Drops Across Key Categories in Second Quarter

B-to-b mag files down slightly while consumer magazines edge up for the second quarter in a row.

By Bill Mickey
Friday, June 1, 2012

List marketing agency Worldata has released its spring 2012 pricing metrics and list values across most categories have continued to fall.

The biggest drop occurred in the database/masterfile category, which fell 27 percent versus the same period last year. Masterfiles, says Worldata, are becoming more competitive with the cheaper aggregated database files and are falling in line with similar pricing. This is after a 23 percent drop at the winter 2012 report.

Aggregated databases are also falling in value—the aggregated business and aggregated email categories each fell 16 percent and 17 percent, respectively. "The files included in this category are scourced from web scraping, crowd sourcing and other compiling solutions," says Ray Tesi, senior vice president of Worldata, in a statement. "Marketers have now had ample time to test these new sources and have found results that are productive but at much lower list rental CPMs. This is refleted by the continued drop in pricing."

Controlled b-to-b magazine files dropped almost 4 percent in spring 2012 compared to spring 2011 to $136/M, a $5.00 drop. Paid circ b-to-b mag files also fell, losing $6.00, or about 4 percent.

Consumer magazine files were one of two categories out of the 20 tracked that actually gained value, edging up slightly by 1 percent, or $1, to $94/M.