Ad$pender - The Problem of Zero Results

Ad$pender is usually a wonderful database that gives you advertising budgets for categories of products, companies and brands.  You can use the database from off-campus with your regular net ID and password.

HOWEVER, a common problem is building your query and getting no results.

This is because a data point is missing. Instead of n/a in your results, you just get a big fat zero for the whole thing. Through trial and error, you'll have to adjust your query in order to get results.


I'll let AdSpender explain.

What does “There were no results for the report you requested” mean? This means that there was no activity found for the report you ran. This could happen for a number of reasons. For example, the brands included in your report may not have had any activity during the time period you requested, or perhaps dollars or ratings were not yet available for the time period you included in the report. In this situation you should check data availability or change some of your selections before running your report again.

Note: This tutorial is excellent, but it starts with the old library page. AdSpender still works exactly the same - just find Ad$pender here.

Ad $ Summary

The help video for Ad $ Summary.

Are Those Ad$pender Numbers Right?

So you ran your search in Ad$pender - and got some results. Company X spent $1.3 million advertising its new product. Is that number accurate?

Well, yes, but here's a trick to put your mind at ease.

Go to Advertising RedBooks databases and USUALLY the company and the total spent will be there.

Go to ABI Inform and enter keywords like Company X and advertising budget, marketing, etc...Sooner or later you will find the ballpark number for the budget in a recent year.

Ad$pender and Ad$ummary Tutorial

Tutorial for both Adspender and AdSummary. The tutorial starts out with the previous webpage, but clicking on Research Databases (now slightly off center right) will take you to the same place.

Research ad budgets and media deployment for brands, industries and more!