NEWS: The Online Ad Story in a Picture

The Online Ad Story in a Picture New York Times
By SAUL HANSELL

Sometimes you see a graph that tells the whole story. The one in The Wall Street Journal this morning showing the relative share of online advertising spending of the big players is one of them. (The data, from eMarketer, is below.)

The big picture is that the online ad market is booming. But the big portals that dominated spending in the early part of the decade — AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft — are all losing share, even though all of them have been buying up advertising companies. Social networking sites and sites further out the long tail are increasing their share of audience time, and thus ad dollars.

You might say it is like the big three TV networks after cable arrived. Except for one difference: Google. No cable network arose to sop up one-third of the commercial time.

Ed: Typical conventional wisdom at the top of the world view. Where did eMarketer get data on the Long Tail of suppliers, publishers, and ad sellers? 

Total US is $21 billion in 2007. IAB reports top 10 earns 70%. Top 10 include Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Fox, Time Warner, New York Times, Viacom, Disney, and Weather. 

The Long Tail includes Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, social networks, CBS, NBC, Hearst, IDG, Ziff Davis magazines (Lehman says vertical group has 39%), all game sites, all newspapers (NAA says 10%), yellow page sites, local TV stations, CNet, B2B magazines, Federated Media, Gawker, and 100 million blogs (Google TAC less Fox share is $3b or 15%). Mr. Arrington, you are part of the Long Tail;-) Could IAB and eMarketer be wrong?

Google reports $4.8b in 2007 Q4 - 52% USA of $2.5b. TAC of $1.4B - possibly $1B TAC+content cost paid in USA. Thus, Google USA is $6b per year; and percentage share overstated - 24%, not 28%. 2008 Q1 due soon. 

If Long Tail data were available - could the Google share drop to 20%??

Google earns 50% outside of USA. In European and Asian countries, local brands, Yahoo, or Microsoft leads; however online advertising share lags. Thus, less transparency on shares.

April 10, 2008

Newspapers Got 27 Percent Online Local Ad Rev in '07

In preparation for its upcoming conference in D.C., the Newspaper Association of America requested some preliminary data from Borrell Associates’ local online revenue study, expected in May. The NAA reported that, as found by Borrell, newspaper sites grabbed almost 27 percent of local online ad market share in '07, or over $2 billion in local online ad revenue. Paper sites also grabbed 26 percent of the$363 million spent on local video ads, according to the NAA's report.

Local YP and TV sites individually accounted for just under 10 percent of the market, and radio stations around 2 percent.

Online Ads Surpass Radio Ads in a Historical First : eMarketer

September 5th, 2007

From Mashable:

“eMarketer reports that spending for online advertising has surpassed ad dollars spent on radio advertising for the first time in 2007, with online marketing reaching $21.7 billion while radio reached $20.4 billion.”