Facebook Doubled Its Share Of Online Advertising

Facebook got 4.7 percent of the U.S. online ad market in 2010, and that will grow 7.8 percent in 2011 with the addition of an estimated $1 billion in U.S. ad revenues to its 2010 base, according to eMarketer. EMarketer estimates ad spending on Facebook will reach $4.05 billion worldwide in 2011 -- more than double the 2010 figure of $1.86 billion in global ad revenues. By 2012, worldwide ad spending on Facebook is expected to reach $5.74 billion, up 42 percent over 2011. These figures come from a press release put out this morning, teasing to the consultancy's forthcoming report called "Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending: 2011 Outlook," by Debra Aho Williamson, the company's principal analyst for social media and a former colleague of mine. Williamson's source material originally included some data from comScore that apparently got picked up by AdAge and numerous bloggers, yet a very important qualification got lost in the retelling: Rhose figures included advertising on all social media sites, which explains what some have called an "affiliate scam" showed up as number three on the list. The figures also lost a digit in the reiterations -- millions instead of billions -- although numerous bloggers picked up on that. An official email from Facebook clarified our suspicions that the misinformation was, well, exactly that: Not only is make-my-baby.com not one of our largest advertisers, they are not an advertiser at all. In fact, their practices are against our ad policies and would be rejected as a result. This is true whether they tried to run ads with us or an affiliate did. The eMarketer release today doesn't break out individual advertisers, but does separate at least some of the specific social media sites. Namely, Myspace, which will see its ad revenues drop to $184 million this year, down from $288 million in 2010 and $470 million in 2009, dramatically contrasting how Facebook's performance. Williamson said, "2010 was the year that Facebook firmly established itself as a major force, not only in social network advertising, but all of online advertising... If Facebook can continue to increase its global user base and boost the amount of revenue it generates per user, it could even surpass these forecasts... Facebook must continue to innovate its user experience and its ad platform."

Social Pro Daily

Facebook Doubled Its Share Of Online Advertising

Ad spending on Facebook will reach $4.05 billion worldwide in 2011 -- more than double last year's figure of $1.86 billion in global ad revenues, according to eMarketer.

Jackie Cohen

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Jackie Cohen