Web Publishing and Riding The Online Ad Rocket
Posted by Ken Lauher on Thu, Mar 08, 2007 @ 02:01 PM
The Internet Advertising Bureau reported its estimate on Fourth Quarter 2006 online advertising revenue of $16 billion today:
…revenues for 2006 are estimated at $16.8 billion, a 34 percent increase over the previous revenue record of $12.5 billion in 2005. The 2006 Q4 revenues totaled just under $4.8 billion, making it the highest quarter reported. Fourth-quarter revenues for 2006 represent a 32 percent increase over the same period in 2005, and a 15 percent increase over Q3 of 2006, estimated at slightly under $4.2 billion.
Clearly, the shift of advertising dollars to online continues at a breakneck pace. Peter Petrusky, at PricewaterhouseCoopers states:
The maturation of the Internet as an effective advertising medium is directly tied to its ability to deliver qualified audiences to marketers.
On a related note, Michael Arrington writes in Tech Crunch that John Batelle’s Federated Media is becoming very successful. FM has done a great job of bringing together long tail publishers under one roof and allowing advertisers to target niche content efficiently. Obviously, FM is benefiting from the surge of dollars online by offering what is effectively a blog ad network.
Even the ‘big guys’ of media are getting into the act of new web publisher initiatives that will afford a better opportunity to capture ad dollars online. Viacom, and more specifically, MTV Networks has announced that it will build “1000s of websites” integrated into its big media brands such as Nickelodeon (including Nick.com and NickJr.com), MTV (MTV.com, MTVU.com, etc.) and VH-1 (VH1.com). These websites will allow the channels the ability to offer its video archives with preroll ad video in addition to surrounding, standard in-page ad formats. As John Gartner says on Marketing Shift:
While MTV is being the most aggressive today, all of the networks are realizing that this is the future and that online revenue could someday rival the money they get from TV advertising…
The targeting and tracking available for online ad campaigns compared to traditional media will only continue to attract advertisers to the Web. With red-hot, year-over-year growth, why wouldn’t you ramp up your web publishing like MTV Networks is doing to capture the growing online ad spend?
As IAB CEO and President, Randall Rothenberg says, “The [online advertising] increase underscores marketers’ understanding that Interactive advertising can engage consumers, build brands and sell products and services.”
-- Ken Lauher