WebMD Health (WBMD)

 

We believe that The WebMD Health Network offers an efficient means for advertisers and sponsors to reach a large audience of health-involved consumers, clinically-active physicians and other healthcare professionals. The WebMD Health Network enables advertisers and sponsors to reach either our entire audience or specific groups of consumers, physicians and other healthcare professionals based on their interests or specialties. Currently, the majority of our advertisers and sponsors are pharmaceutical, biotechnology or medical device firms or consumer products companies. These companies currently spend only a very small portion of their marketing and educational budgets on online media. However, we expect their online spending to increase as a result of increased recognition of its potential advantages over offline marketing and educational activities. The WebMD Health Network ran approximately 1,400 branded or sponsored programs for its customers during 2008, approximately 1,000 such programs during 2007, and approximately 800 such programs during 2006.

 

Our public portals provide advertisers and sponsors with customized marketing campaigns that go beyond traditional Internet advertising media. We work with our advertisers and sponsors to develop marketing programs that are appropriately customized to target specific groups of consumers, physicians or healthcare professionals. Our public portal services are typically priced at an aggregate price that takes into account the overall scope of the services provided, based upon the amount of content, tools and features we supply as well as the degree of customization that we provide for the program. In addition, our contracts often include guarantees with respect to the number of users that visit the client-sponsored area, but do not generally include assurances with respect to the number of clicks or actions taken through such Web sites. To a much lesser extent, we also sell advertising on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, where an advertiser can purchase a set amount of impressions on a cost per thousand basis. An “impression” is a single instance of an ad appearing on a Web page. Our private portals do not generate revenue from advertising or sponsorship. See “— Our Private Portals: WebMD Health Services” below.

 

We provide healthcare advertisers and other sponsors with the means to communicate with targeted groups of consumers and physicians by offering placements and programs in the most relevant locations on our portals. The following are some of the types of placements and programs we offer to advertisers and sponsors:

 

 

We believe that The WebMD Health Network offers an efficient means for advertisers and sponsors to reach a large audience of health-involved consumers, clinically-active physicians and other healthcare professionals. The WebMD Health Network enables advertisers and sponsors to reach either our entire audience or specific groups of consumers, physicians and other healthcare professionals based on their interests or specialties. Currently, the majority of our advertisers and sponsors are pharmaceutical, biotechnology or medical device firms or consumer products companies. These companies currently spend only a very small portion of their marketing and educational budgets on online media. However, we expect their online spending to increase as a result of increased recognition of its potential advantages over offline marketing and educational activities. The WebMD Health Network ran approximately 1,000 branded or sponsored programs for its customers during 2007, 800 such programs during 2006, and approximately 570 such programs during 2005.

 

Our public portals provide advertisers and sponsors with customized marketing campaigns that go beyond traditional Internet advertising media. We work with our advertisers and sponsors to develop marketing programs that are appropriately customized to target specific groups of consumers, physicians or healthcare

 

We believe that The WebMD Health Network offers an efficient means for advertisers and sponsors to reach a large audience of health-involved consumers, clinically-active physicians and other healthcare professionals. The WebMD Health Network enables advertisers and sponsors to reach either our entire audience or specific groups of consumers, physicians and other healthcare professionals based on their interests or specialties. Currently, the majority of our advertisers and sponsors are pharmaceutical, biotechnology or medical device firms or consumer products companies. These companies currently spend only a very small portion of their marketing and educational budgets on online media. However, we expect their online spending to increase as a result of increased recognition of its potential advantages over offline marketing and educational activities. The WebMD Health Network ran approximately 800 branded or sponsored programs for its customers during 2006, approximately 570 such programs during 2005 and approximately 380 such programs during 2004.

 

Our public portals provide advertisers and sponsors with customized marketing campaigns that go beyond traditional Internet advertising media. We work with our advertisers and sponsors to develop marketing programs that are appropriately customized to target specific groups of consumers, physicians or healthcare professionals. Our public portal services are typically priced at an aggregate price that takes into account the overall scope of the services provided, based upon the amount of content, tools and features we supply as well as the degree of customization that we provide for the program. In addition, our contracts often include guarantees with respect to the number of users that visit the client sponsored-area, but do not generally include assurances with respect to the number of clicks or actions taken through such Web sites. To a much lesser extent, we also sell advertising on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, where an advertiser can

 

We believe that The WebMD Health Network offers an efficient means for advertisers and sponsors to reach a large audience of health-involved consumers, clinically-active physicians and other healthcare professionals. The WebMD Health Network enables advertisers and sponsors to reach either our entire audience or specific groups of consumers, physicians and other healthcare professionals based on their interests or specialties. Currently, the majority of our advertisers and sponsors are pharmaceutical, biotechnology or medical device firms or consumer products companies. These companies currently spend only a very small portion of their marketing and educational budgets on online media. However, we expect their online spending to increase as a result of increased recognition of its potential advantages over offline marketing and educational activities. The WebMD Health Network ran 570 branded or sponsored programs for its customers during 2005, 380 such programs during 2004 and 325 such programs during 2003.

 

We typically enter into contracts with advertisers and sponsors to develop customized marketing campaigns that go beyond traditional Internet advertising media. We work with our advertisers and sponsors to develop marketing programs that are appropriately customized to target health-involved consumers, physicians or healthcare professionals. Our agreements with customers for our public portal services are typically priced at an aggregate price that takes into account the overall scope of the services provided and variations based upon the amount of content, tools and features we supply as well as the degree of customization that we provide for the program. To a much lesser extent, we also sell advertising on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, where an advertiser can purchase a set amount of impressions (an impression is a single instance of an ad appearing on a Web page) on a cost per thousand basis.