Web Watch

Marjorie Martin, SVP and general manager of Everyday Health, believes consumers will be the big winner in the merger of Revolution Health and Everyday Health. 

Prior to the merger, Everyday Health was the second most popular health website with 14.7 million unique visitors and more than 80 million page views. The Revolution Health Network sites were the third most popular health destination with 12 million unique visitors per month and 224 million page views. Media buyers tend to focus client’s online budgets on a handful of targeted sites that deliver desired results. Now they can get almost twice the audience reach and frequency with one buy. 

WebMD has been the most popular health web destination for more than 10 years. According to comScore Media Metrics, WebMD has more than 17.7 million monthly site visitors and their website generates 206 million monthly page views. But it looks like there’s a new sheriff in town. The Everyday Health Network is projected to deliver more than 20 million unique monthly visitors according to a comScore Plan Metrics custom study. 

Destination sites like WebMD, Everyday Health Network and HealthCentral Network will likely account for the lion’s share of health display ad investments going forward. Google and, to a lesser extent, Yahoo! will share most of the health search dollars. It will be interesting to see if Google tries to establish a stronger foothold in the health space. If the decision comes down to whether Google continues to build up their existing health presence or buy one of the top players, they certainly have the money to succeed either way. It’s just a matter of how wisely they spend it.