Online Advertising Market Facts & Figures

Sometimes it is good to analyze the market through the numbers. I would like to share eMarketer and comScore Data Mine's 2012 predictions for the online advertising market with you.

The first conclusion is that online ad spending is mainly happening in North America, followed by Western Europe and Asia-Pacific. Eastern Europe and Latin America will grow at a very slow pace.

Global online ad spending will continue to experience double digit growth: US online ad spending will double between 2011 and 2016.

The online advertising market share analysis shows us that Google is the dominant player in this market with a 44,1% of the pie. Facebook had only a 3,1% in 2011. The combination between search and display banner ads gives Google a tremendous advantage over their competitors. The question is if Facebook will be able to reduce this gap with Google and even with Yahoo! / Microsoft with their new Facebook Exchange platform.

Search advertising is still 49% of total online advertising spending in the US. Display banner ads have to improve their profitability to compete against Google Adwords. The battle between Google and Facebook for the display banner ad market has just started. Google has the advantage of Adwords and Facebook has the power of their traffic and online inventory. The future is unpredictable, but advertisers need results, so the company that delivers the best results will conquer this piece of the pie.

We can see how retailers are leading the online ad revenue by industry category. Since ecommerce is part of every company's online strategy, retailers are spending more and more money on online advertising. This trend will continue because online purchasing will migrate to mobile devices.

Revenues by pricing models in the US show how important results are for online advertisers. Cost per click and cost per action make up 64% in 2011, up from 61% in 2010. Display banner ads will need to prove if they can continue to be marketed at CPM rates or at CPC rates. This will be also an interesting trend to follow over the next few years.

Finally, we can see how online ad spending will double from 2011 to 2016, at least in each of the biggest online ad spending countries. It is a huge market and will continue high growth over the next years. There is a big opportunity for publishers, agencies and advertisers. The rest of the online advertising ecosystem will need to be aware of what Google and Facebook do. But the opportunity is still there. Don't you think?