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Posts Tagged ‘web advertising’

Facebook Poised to Assume Top Spot in Web Advertising

Posted in Facebook Commerce, General News / Technology, tagged , , , , , on June 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Don’t look now, but Facebook’s takeover of the world continues!

According to a new report by research firm eMarketer, the social networking giant’s web advertising revenue is growing at such a clip that it will overtake both Google and Yahoo this year and become No. 1 in online display ads.

eMarketer’s data projects that Facebook will generate $2.2 billion in U.S. advertising revenue in 2011, which equates to roughly 17.7 percent of all display ad revenue across the industry.

Just last year, Facebook only accounted for a little more than 12 percent of total online advertising revenue.  Such profound year-over-year growth shows that more and more businesses of every size are adopting Facebook’s package of banner ads, web page sponsorships and video ads to reach consumers.

“Facebook’s supreme popularity—both in terms of numbers of people and amount of time they spend there—creates a plethora of display ad impressions, mainly for its unique form of banners,” said eMarketer’s David Hallerman.  “And that popularity is also boosting what advertisers will pay for its display ads.”

The data paints a picture of a rapidly changing landscape in online advertising, one in which Facebook is gobbling up more of the pie while Google and Yahoo are both failing to keep up.

Google appears to be in better shape than Yahoo, at least.  eMarketer forecasts that Google’s 2011 U.S. advertising revenue will total $1.15 billion, an increase of more than 34 percent from 2010 and a figure that gives the company 9.3 percent of all online advertising revenue.  Yahoo, meanwhile, despite an increase in overall advertising revenue this year, will see its share of total revenue fall from 14.4 percent to 13.1 percent.

That trend is expected to continue into next year as well. In 2012, eMarketer estimates that Facebook will handily increase its dominance in the U.S. display market, relegating Google and Yahoo to fighting for the second spot.  Facebook is expected to garner 19.4 percent of the market in 2012, while Google and Yahoo will be in a near-deadlock at 12.3 and 12.5 percent respectively.

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Online Ad Spending Expected to Balloon this Year

Posted in General News / Technology, tagged , , , , , on June 13, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Online advertising budgets experienced wave after wave of decreases as the recession wrecked havoc on overall marketing strategies, but new data from eMarketer suggests that period of cooling off is likely over and ad spending will increase across the board over the next four years.

eMarketer predicts that online advertising will total $31.3 billion here in 2011, a 20 percent increase over the roughly $26 billion spent on the medium last year.  It will be the start of an overall return to pre-recession growth levels that should continue through 2015.

eMarketer had originally projected 10.5 percent growth.

“The internet has become as fundamental as television to advertisers,” says eMarketer’s principal analyst David Hallerman.  “As consumers continue to increase their time spent online and as a resurgent economy continues to bolster ad budgets, we’re going to continue to see an influx of dollars toward the Internet.  More ad formats, such as video, and more channels, especially social media and mobile, are also key contributors to the spending gains.”

The data further reveals that display advertising has already exceeded expectations for the year:  advertisers are expected to increase display ad spending to $12.3 billion in 2011, a 24.5 percent increase.  Search advertising is also expected to grow by almost 20 percent to $14.4 billion.

However, as marketers increasingly view online ads as a branding tool, display ads will continue to see better growth than search advertisements.  And eMarketer predicts that by 2015, display ads will overtake search ads completely in terms of market share.

Reflecting emerging trends with regard to the waning effectiveness of traditional advertising programs like television, eMarketer further estimates that Internet ads will account for one-fifth of the entire U.S. advertising market this year and that by 2015, 28 percent of all U.S. ad spending will be online.

And further adding to the woes of traditional TV advertising is the fact that video is the fastest-growing online ad type, particularly as Google builds on its advertising offerings through the promotional arm of YouTube.  eMarketer expects video ad spending to total $2.16 billion this year and by 2013, they are expected to evolve into the third-largest ad format.

Banner ads are still relevant as well, and are expected to total $7.61 billion this year.

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Final 2009 Click Fraud Data Released

Posted in Click Fraud, Merchant Tips, tagged , , , , , , on January 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Anchor Intelligence unveiled new data on click fraud rates for the fourth quarter of last year in conjunction with an overall report on click fraud throughout 2009, and the picture remains an ugly one.

Anchor, the California-based traffic quality provider that Ecommerce Junkie regards as the most reliable industry source of click fraud information, states in its 2009 Year in Review that click fraud rates jumped by nearly 40% between the third (18.6 percent) and fourth (25.7 percent) quarters last year—meaning that by the end of 2009, one out of every four ad clicks across the web constituted some attempt at click fraud.  That’s a percentage that should make all online advertisers very nervous.

Now, to be fair, some increase in Q4 rates probably should’ve been expected.  After all, it’s a time period that includes Cyber Monday and the holiday shopping season at large, when more ads are being bought and placed, and millions are using the web for holiday shopping.

But with that increase in ads and traffic came an even more expansive effort from fraudsters. Botnets, the automated ring leaders of click fraud activity, continue to grow in number, are increasingly hard to track, and are getting even more devious.  Anchor noted that newer advertisers, for example, saw an even higher rate of fraud towards the end of the year as these botnets and click fraud farms expanded to every corner of web advertising.

The report also noted that the U.S. and Canada continue to be the largest sources of attempted click fraud by volume, while warning that 2010 could be even worse as cyber criminals look to exploit the growth and popularity of social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

“As botnets become more flexible and resilient, click fraud will be increasingly difficult to identify without a collaborative and systematic, network-based approach,” said Ken Miller, Anchor’s CEO.  “By releasing this report, we hope to provide a barometer by which the industry can assess the level of threats to online advertising while also conveying the importance of advertising with ad networks and search engines that partner with third-parties to certify their traffic quality.”

As we said, a 25-plus percent rate of click fraud, as well as Anchor’s warning that things may not improve anytime soon,  should concern any web advertiser.  Many industry insiders privately say that click fraud will never completely be abolished and suggest that perhaps, budgetingfor losses because of click fraud will become standard practice.  While we’re not willing to give in quite that easily, it’s obvious that click fraud perpetrators are adapting and evolving faster than wecan counter.

That means that ultimately, the burden for dealing with click fraud is on you, the advertiser.  We’ve said time and again that it’s vital to educate yourself how click fraud works and keep constant tabs on your click logs to learn the signs consistent with botnet activity.  Doing so will put you in a better position to spot instances of fraud, and thus help you better determine which web advertising optionsare the safest.

As Anchor Intelligence’s report proves yet again, click fraud is not going anywhere anytime soon. Are you prepared to deal with it here in 2010 and beyond?  Feel free to leave us questions or tips in the comment section below.

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