The ALPS International Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (IDOG) made its debut on 06/28/2013, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Foreign Large Value ETF category of the market.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

For a long time now, the ETF industry has been flooded with products based on market capitalization weighted indexes, which are designed to represent the broader market or a particular market segment.

A good option for investors who believe in market efficiency, market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns.

There are some investors, though, who think it's possible to beat the market with great stock selection; this group likely invests in another class of funds known as smart beta, which track non-cap weighted strategies.

By attempting to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, non-cap weighted indexes are based on certain fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such.

While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results.

Fund Sponsor & Index

Managed by Alps, IDOG has amassed assets over $326.17 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Foreign Large Value ETF. Before fees and expenses, IDOG seeks to match the performance of the S-Network International Sector Dividend Dogs Index.

The S-Network International Sector Dividend Dogs Index identifies five high yielding securities, based on regular cash dividends, in each of the ten Global Industry Classification Standard sectors and is rebalanced quarterly.

Cost & Other Expenses

Since cheaper funds tend to produce better results than more expensive funds, assuming all other factors remain equal, it is important for investors to pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio.

Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.50% for IDOG, making it on par with most peer products in the space.

IDOG's 12-month trailing dividend yield is 4.54%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

Looking at individual holdings, Japan Tobacco Inc. Accounts for about 2.36% of total assets, followed by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (ST) and Imperial Brands Plc (IMB).