Online Display Ads Impressive for Down Year

Despite stalled economic recovery, online display advertising has shown impressive vigor in 2010, according to a new report issued by the yield optimization firm the Rubicon Project.

According to the report, CPMs jumped an average 25 percent in Q2 of this year versus Q1 among Web publishers of the Rubicon 20 Index, a group of 20 publishers in the news, gaming, finance and entertainment categories, which Rubicon deems as "premium" brands. The company does not say which sites are parts of the Rubicon 20 Index, but its more high-profile partners include NBC Universal, Time Inc. and Gannett.

Collectively, CPMs for the 20 Index have surged by 47 percent since the start of this year, per Rubicon. "Many publishers breathed a sigh of relief in the spring, as they saw marketers loosening their budgets a bit," says the report.

Rubicon officials say they tracked a similar rise in spending in 2009, when Q2 significantly outperformed Q1. However, according to the report, last year's Q2 spending acceleration was attributed to a "bounce back after the free fall of late 2008 across the online ad industry as well as the global economy as a whole."

However, this year's been a more sustained market upswing, driven in part by the growth of its own proprietary online ad arena -- the REVV Marketplace. In addition, Q2 received a jolt from big sports events such as the NBA Finals and the World Cup.

"By all accounts, 2010 is shaping up to be the strongest year yet for online ad spending," says the report.