Targeted advertising in magazine markets

We examine the scope and value of targeted advertising in the magazine industry. We use data on reader characteristics at individual media, in contrast to previous work that has needed to infer this information from aggregate data. Our results show a strong relationship between subscriber characteristics and advertising prices. Advertisers clearly value more homogenous groups of readers, measured according to income, gender and age. Our results explain recent trends of declining advertising expenditures in print media, in favor of increasing online advertising.