Internet Ad Revenue Up 15.2% in First Half of 2008

Internet advertising revenues for the first six months of 2008 were $11.5 billion, setting a new half-year record that represents a 15.2% increase over the first half of 2007, according to recently released data from The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) andPricewaterhouseCoopers.

The IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report also shows a Q2 increase of 12.8% over the same period in 2007 and shows a slight decline of 0.3% from the first quarter.

Search- and display-related advertising also reached all-time highs. Search revenues totaled nearly $5.1 billion for the first six months of 2008, up 24% from $4.1 billion for the same period in 2007.

Display-related advertising totaled nearly $3.8 billion for first six months of 2008, compared with $3.2 billion for the same period in 2007, roughly a 19% increase. Display-related advertising includes display banner ads, rich media, digital video, and sponsorship.

“Interactive advertising continues to demonstrate year-over-year growth as marketers and consumers increase their embrace of digital media,” said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. “The essentially flat performance we see quarter to quarter reflects in part cyclical advertising trends. Compared to the trajectory in other media and in the general economy, interactive has outperformed because it delivers a level of accountability unmatched by any other advertising medium.”

About the report: The IAB research was conducted by the New Media Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Launched in  1996, it aggregates data from all companies that report meaningful online advertising revenues and includes data about online advertising revenues from websites, commercial online services, ad networks, free email providers, and all other companies selling online advertising.

STATS: Top 100 US Media Revenues, 2007

Revenue Growth Slowest Since 2001

Media100′S Net U.S. Media Revenue Rises 4.6%, Nearing $300 Billion

By Bradley Johnson 

Published: September 29, 2008

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — The nation’s top 100 media companies saw a 4.6% revenue boost in 2007, their slowest growth since the recession year of 2001. 

Media’s tempered growth mirrors that of the economy: GDP last year recorded its most tepid growth (2%) since 2002 amid signs the economy was heading into recession. 

Media’s biggest winner is no surprise: digital, with revenue up 10.8%. Cable-network growth was close behind, at 10.6%. The biggest loser: newspapers, down 6.8%. 

2008 Special Report: Media Family Tree  Media Companies’ Data Charts  Ad Age’s Media 100 List Gives Glimpse of a New Order  DataCenter This Week: Media Loses Nearly 20,000 Jobs

The nation’s 100 Leading Media Companies pulled in 2007 net U.S. media revenue of $299.1 billion, including money from advertising, subscriptions and fees. 

Time Warner still on top
Time Warner topped the list with net U.S. media revenue of $35.6 billion. Time Warner, which has held the No. 1 spot each year since 1995, collected 11.9% of Media 100 revenue — nearly one of every eight dollars spent by advertisers and consumers on products and services from the top 100. 

Time Warner is likely to lose its position as the nation’s largest media company. The company is preparing to spin off its biggest operating segment, Time Warner Cable, as a wholly separate company. Time Warner minus its cable systems had 2007 net U.S. media revenue of about $21 billion. That would make it the second-largest U.S. media firm, behind Comcast Corp. ($26.9 billion). 

Ad Age has published the 100 Leading Media Companies report since 1981. In that first report, the top 100 had U.S. media revenue of $29.5 billion, one-tenth the revenue of this year’s Media 100. 

The Media 100 offers a bottom-up view of media by tallying revenue from an array of products and services. This includes traditional media, internet services, cable providers and movies. Revenue sources include advertising, subscriptions, sales of movie tickets and DVDs, and fees from TV production/licensing. …

Report: Big Media Growth Slowest Since 2001. And That Was Last Year…

Peter Kafka | September 29, 2008 8:53 AM

Ad Age tallies up the 100 biggest media companies in the U.S. and concludes that their American revenue grew just 4.6% in 207 - the slowest rate since 2001. 

What’s the best display ad size for your website?

by jeremyliew

Many websites default to the 728×90 (leaderboard) ad size when designing their site. This is a reasonably good option as it has the second highest click through rate of the various standard ad units. But it is possible to do better. Marketing Sherpa researched clickthrough rates by ad size (from largest ad unit to smallest) recently:

The chart shows that click through rate is not simply a function of the size of the ad. The largest ad unit, the wide skyscraper (160×600) has the second lowest click through rate. For the full range of IAB standard ad units, click here.

Ed: These Click Rates are all pathetic. Can we do better?

I Guess I’m Doing Something Wrong from A VC

Technorati says in their annual State Of The Blogosphere that:

The majority of bloggers we surveyed currently have advertising on their blogs. Among those with advertising, the mean annual investment in their blog is $1,800, but it’s paying off. The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month.

Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch was a bit mystified at that $75k number:

The $6,000 a year I can believe. The $75,000 figure is harder to swallow, especially with only 100,000 visitors a month. But directionally there is no doubt that blogs are bringing in more cash.

I’m a bit mystified at that number too. I’ve had about 150k visitors per month for several years now. My audience is stable but flat. I get about 100k visitors per month on my website and another 50k via my feed. At best, this blog brings in about $30k per year, all of which I give to charity.

And I use two of the better monetization services out there for bloggers, Federated Media and FeedBurner. I used to use adsense but I took it off this blog (except for default).

I don’t doubt that there are bloggers with similar sized audiences who do make $75k per year because they work it a lot harder than I do, but I also think that Technorati’s survey results are wrong.

The reason I am writing about this is that there’s a big difference between $30k per year which is very hard to make a living on no matter where you live and $75k per year which could replace a full-time job in many parts of the country.

Getting to 150k visitors per month and keeping them is not easy, but there are hundreds and possibly thousands of bloggers who do that these days. It would be wonderful if blogging could cover their nut and make them self sufficient.

I just don’t think we are there yet. We should be and we will be. But not yet.

djc80802 minutes ago

Federated Media is doing a great job for you, turning an estimated $20 eCPM. Other high traffic blogs flood their pages with ads to earn similar eCPM, but at the cost of low ROI to the advertiser. The Long Tail earns less than $1.00 eCPM. (See New Economics of Advertising for 900 pages of collected research.)

I agree that $75k per year would start another renaissance of content on the Internet. It’s green, rich media, and connects communities. 

100k unique users make no sense. Most real communities have less than 50,000 total population. This also applies to most B2B markets. For vertical communities, 100 million UU might be needed to sustain long term viability. 100k is a no-man’s land. 

Small business advertisers mostly target 50,000; not millions.

The big picture is that we need thousands of communities with 50k UU, 10 pages per month, $50 eCPM net to the publisher. That’s $25k per month – enough for salaries, investment in rich media content, and interactive features.

At tEarn, we’re beta testing with 50 local newspapers and niche publishers to realize this goal. It’s time to stop inflating hits for size sake. It’s time for change to segment into real, sustainable communities – tens of thousands of what we call microchannels.

Boomers Network Online and Stream Video, Ripe for Web Entertainment

A majority (61%) of Baby Boomer internet users in the US have visited sites that offer streaming or downloadable video, while 41% have visited online social networks, according to a report from The NPD Group.

Those figures show significant usage of online entertainment media among Boomers and make them a key demographic segment for more digital products and marketing, NPD said.

The “Entertainment Trends in America” tracking study also finds as follows:

• More than half of all web users (57%) visited a social-networking site, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or MySpace, in past three months:

• Although young web users (age 13-34) are significantly more likely to visit social-networking sites – and to visit them more often – more than half of Baby Boomers (age 44-61) visited a social-networking site in the past three months, with users averaging 15 days in one-month period.
• Boomers who visited social-networking sites did so an average of eight times over the previous three months.
• 72% of all web users visited a video streaming/sharing site – such as YouTube or a TV network website – in the previous three months. These types of sites were visited more than gaming sites, on average:

• Among video streaming/sharing site visitors, the average usage frequency is eight days in a month.
• Males and those age 13-34 show significantly higher penetration than females and individuals age 35 and older.

Regarding the web’s effect on traditional entertainment content, NPD found that Boomers who engage in activities such as networking or video streaming are also more likely to buy DVDs and CDs and go out to the movies. On average, Boomers who stream video are 15% more likely than their non-streaming counterparts to buy a CD, DVD, or movie tickets, NPD said.

“As more consumers of all ages spend more time online, there’s potentially going to be less time for them to consume entertainment content in traditional ways,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group. “These findings underscore the growing need for entertainment companies to promote and distribute digital entertainment content online, in order to keep pace with the changing needs and desires of consumers of all ages. ”

The use of email and web surfing was nearly universal among web users surveyed by NPD (97%). Online shopping was also prevalent across age groups; with 80% of web users reporting shopping in the prior three months. Teens and young adults reported less online shopping activity than older consumers, perhaps because many teens do not have access to credit cards, NPD said.