SourceMedia launches sponsored indices to boost research business

David Longobardi

August 22, 2012 - Last year, SourceMedia identified research and data as a priority business for the company. As part of that initiative, the company has launched three monthly indices that track business conditions and activity for the public accounting, commercial banking and investment advisory sectors. The indices are developed in collaboration with the editors for Accounting Today, American Banker and Financial Planning, respectively.

"The indices’ purpose is to broaden and deepen our coverage of each market segment, to provide ongoing insight into where each market is headed and to enable the audience to understand and track that insight in quantitative terms,” says David Longobardi, executive vice president and chief content officer for SourceMedia. “The idea is to give companies in B2B markets a sense of where their market is going and what their peers are experiencing."

Each index is created from a monthly poll comprising questions that serve as business metrics. For instance, the Accountants Confidence Index (ACI) is generated from responses from more than 1,000 tax and accounting professionals; they are asked to estimate the growth prospects of their own firms, their business clients (small, midsized and large) and the U.S. economy as a whole.

The Index of Banking Activity (IBA), launched last month, surveys more than 300 senior executives distributed across the FDIC’s asset-size breakouts. IBA indicators include loan activity, loan pricing, deposit account activity, staffing and business and real estate conditions.

Premiering later this year is the Retirement Advisor Confidence Index (RACI), a survey of more than 300 financial advisors. Respondents are asked about business activities in financial planning, such as asset allocations, investment product recommendations, client recruitment and retention, economic/risk factors and taxes and plan fees.