Work question: Competitive online media analysis?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Very niche question but I'm not having any luck anywhere else at the moment.

Competitive media analysis for traditional media is a pretty common thing with long established paths. If I want to know how much money my competition has spent advertising in magazine(s) I can actually call the publications directly & they'll just tell me. For radio & TV there are companies who track every ad that runs on a given station(s)/network(s) and they extrapolate the spending.

But what about online? Considering the vast array of niche websites accepting ads from networks like Google et al, plus countless sites accepting advertising directly paid to the site, it seems like a nearly impossible task. And I'm not finding any services who attempt online advertising in the way that TV/radio are compiled.

However imperfect, I can find some sort of idea for the traffic to a particular website (via Alexa, Google, whatever) but I haven't found anything that looks at what advertisers are doing what at anything less than a global scale (i.e. my niche is a small niche, it's not McDonald's vs Burger King)

Between the people here in advertising, the people here in internet-related businesses, and our general knowledge pool, I figured it was at least worth a try to throw the question out there and hope that someone can point me toward a good source for the information I need for a client.

[Klinglerware]

"Syndicated" digital impression measurement right now is nowhere near as good as it is for traditional media, as you know. That would certainly affect the rate-card estimated spend (which I was never fond of).

Nielsen AdRelevance is one service I know of.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Thanks Klingler, I'll definitely look into that.

The only thing I was finding was TNS Media Intelligence and the competitors in my category are simply too small to even be close to them tracking (I doubt the combined spend of all in the category is even $500k annually)