The results of a recent study about Moms with “tweens”, undertaken by BIG Research, provided some useful results. The study, which was released last week and also discussed on Internetretailer.com by Allison Enright, revealed that moms of tweens (children 8 to 12 years old) do more online shopping and sharing than the average adult.

The survey of more than 15,000 respondents provided some interesting results:

• 47.6% of moms of tweens prefer to send e-mails after searching for products online, compared to 46.2% of all adults.
• 21.6% of moms of tweens communicate with peers about a product discovered online by text message, compared to 17.6% of all adults.
• 33% of moms of tweens regularly or occasionally use their mobile device to look information on products, that’s compared to 31.3% of all adults.

As anyone with a tween can tell you, time is always at a premium. Moms have to steal bits of time here and there to shop, and online retail is well-suited to the task. But what used to be a “shopping trip” might now be broken up across a number of online sessions on various devices that cut across retailers, comparison shopping sites, manufacturer sites, social sites, and more. That’s why it’s more important than ever to be able to create continuity in retail marketing programs.

Additional figures revealed:

• Facebook alone has 48.2% of moms of tweens regularly using the site, while 39.9% of all adults use the site on a regular basis.
• 43.5% of moms of tweens consider using e-mail and instant messaging a favorite leisure time activity, compared to 41.2% of all adults.
• After looking at a coupon, 46% of moms of tweens are more likely to start an online search of the product, compared to 35.6% of all adults.
• More moms of tweens (52.2%) read blogs on a regular basis than all adults (49.8%).

While some of the results show only slightly more activity on the part of moms with tweens, the wealth of data provides marketers with a chance to engage the demographic effectively.

via Internet Retailer

According to an article on Reuters, media buyer ZenithOptimedia has increased its 2010 global advertising industry growth forecast from 2.2 percent to 3.5 percent. This marks their third 2010 forecast increase due to the accelerated economic recovery across the U.S. and Europe.

Because of the sheer market size, North America and Western Europe are expected to be responsible for a majority of the forecasted growth. However, developing markets are growing at a fast pace and are expected to continue to drive expenditures in the global ad market in the coming few years.

Over the next two years, the more developed markets are projected to grow just 2.4 percent in 2011 and 2.9 percent in 2012. In contrast, developing markets are set for more robust growth of 9.1 and 9.8 percent in 2011 and 2012.

Within the industry as a whole, the television sector has performed especially well over the last couple years as more people have been spending more time at home because of the recession. In 2012, the television sector is forecasted to earn 40.8 percent of the global ad market, up from its 39.2 percent share in 2009.

In third place, behind television and newspaper advertising, the Internet sector’s increase in global market share is being driven forward by especially rapid growth in mobile and social media world. Internet ad spending is set to account for 17.1 percent of the global market in 2012, a dramatic increase from just 12.7 percent in 2009.

via Reuters

In a remarkable feat of resistance against ailing global markets, online advertising spending grew 2% in 2009 to a size of $55.2 billion according to an eMarketer study. Although the growth in 2009 was minimal, it stands in contrast to a decrease in total media spending.

But eMarketer believes growth in the online ad sector will pick up considerably as the global economy continues to strengthen. In fact they are predicting growth of more than 10 percent every year through 2014 when the industry will be worth a staggering $96.8 billion.

“By 2014 eMarketer forecasts that figure will leap to $96.8 billion, growing at an 11.9% compound annual rate, despite the slow, uneven and fragile global economic recovery,” remarked Jared Jenks, author of eMarketer’s new report Worldwide Ad Spending. “These rates will be unmatched by other media.”

The report also predicts that in 2014, the online advertising sector will represent 17.2% of the global ad industry, up from 11.9% in 2009. This growth will be further aided by an overall decrease of 10.5% for all media and the sluggish state of the global economy.

“The reasons for this growth in share are clear,” stated Jenks. “Online is more measureable, more effective and where people are increasingly spending their time.”

via eMarketer

The May, 2010 Ad Metrix Creative Summary report was recently released by ComScore showing the various advertising formats that were most popular over the month. The informative study revealed that Flash & rich media formats together accounted for more than 40 percent of all U.S. online ad impressions in May. Impressions in standard JPEG, GIF and PNG formats made up nearly 60 percent, of which JPEG alone accounted for 42 percent.

Flash has gotten quite a bad rap as of late due to Apple’s refusal to support the format on their mobile devices. That said, developers have been migrating to alternative rich media formats, like HTML5, as they are known to earn greater CPMs than static images.

ComScore also released figures regarding the most common dimensions of the ads served in May. In terms of size, the “Leaderboard” style banner ads, typically shown at 728 x 90 pixels, and medium sized rectangles with 300 x 250 pixels were viewed the most. Banners in general made up 23.1 percent of all U.S. impressions, closely followed by rectangles with 22.7 percent and then non-standard units at 22.1 percent.

Not surprisingly, the ill-received pop-up ads are not the same nuisance they once were thanks to the sanity-saving pop-up blocker. Pop-ups (and pop-unders) represented less than 1 percent of all display ads in May. Other little-used ad dimensions include the 970 x 418 pushdown and the 468 x 648 XXL box, which represented a measly 0.1 percent of impressions.

Knowing what types of ad formats are working is imperative in order to stay competitive. ComScore releases this type of data for the benefit of publishers and advertisers alike to help them serve ads that illicit the most impressions.

via ComScore

In a recent study recently released by Forrester, they discovered that online retailers are preparing to give mobile consumers exactly what they want, which according to Shop.org is mobile ads. In a bid to stay competitive, e-tailers are gearing up for what Shop.org is calling the state of online advertising, which includes a shift of focus to the mobile sector. Interestingly, the study shows that 74% of online retailers have some sort of plan already developed to serve mobile ads to consumers.

As discussed in an article on AXcess News by Dave Porter, Shop.org believes that consumers actually want mobile ads. In fact, Scott Silverman, Executive Director says, “It’s imperative for online retailers to stay on top of what their customers want and these days it’s all mobile all the time.” Silverman goes on to explain how he believes that mobile commerce has great growth potential and will eventually comprise a substantial share of the online retail market as a whole.

Forrester estimated that online ad revenue in the U.S. alone would reach $173 billion this year, but they did not say how much of that comes from mobile ads. The report does, however, reveal that online retailers are expected to spend an average of $170,000 on mobile sites, though larger retailers will spend considerably more.

Aside from mobile advertising, search advertising will still corner the market this year, earning 40% of online advertising revenue. But social advertising is also making a big move and many online retailers are now experimenting with this new medium. However, it is still unclear whether or not the newly implemented strategies are actually translating into actual sales.

via AXcess News

The IAB, or Interactive Advertising Bureau – which is made up of nearly 500 media and technology companies who are involved in selling online advertising – released their final version of “Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines” report this past week. In an article by Lance Whitney on CNET News, he discussed this document which aims to bring some stability and transparency to the interactive advertising market as a whole.

This report comes at a crucial time for an industry that is highly confusing and always rapidly changing. Currently, over 1 million web sites host ads for more than 300 ad networks. And with technology changing and morphing at breakneck speed, the industry is extremely dynamic. This report, available in PDF form, is now available to anyone who wishes to get a better grasp on how to better navigate the industry.

A short list of the terms presented by the IAB include:

• All types of illegal content should be well defined. For example, all content that breaks copyright infringement laws must be tagged as illegal and therefore prohibited for sale.

• The content categories provided for advertisers should be consistently defined and universal for all web sites

• Data disclosure terms should be well-outlined for off-site targeting and third-party data questions.

• All terms relating to targeting and data usage should be well-defined in order to help companies navigate through uncharted waters.

Although these terms are strictly voluntary, Sherrill Mane, senior vice president of Industry Services for the IAB, believes that if they are adopted by most large competitors, standards will be well-established. IAB’s hope is that other companies will then begin to participate with the same guidelines and terms bringing uniformity to the global industry.

An upgraded forecast of the online advertising industry was released this week by digital researcher eMarketer. The report, which was cited on Billboard.biz by author, Mike Shields, shows that online spending will grow at the rapid pace of 10.8 percent in 2010, reaching $25.1 billion.

Much to the delight of online advertisers, this surge of growth is a signal that the ailing market of 2009 has finally found its legs again. Previous numbers forecasted by eMarketer were much more conservative, estimating only 5.5 percent growth. But given the strengthening U.S. economy and an unforseen spike in online ad spending in Q1 2010, the estimates were dramatically revised.

Although the online advertising platforms are being increasingly diversified, the behemoth search industry – including ad exchange networks – still stakes its claim as the number one source of online advertising revenue. In 2010, eMarketer estimates that the large search related companies, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL will comprise 58.5 percent of total online ad revenue.

Not surprisingly, Google will continue to lead the industry by leaps and bounds. In Q1 of 2010, Google’s revenue jumped 21 percent, further pointing to the stabilization of the market as a whole. eMarketer reported that 49.3 percent of online dollars are dedicated to search advertising, Google’s central business. Furthermore, search will continue to lead the industry in terms of ad revenue for years to come, putting Google in a great place to continue with steady growth.

Aside from search advertising, eMarketer is predicting that video advertising is the up-and-coming rage in the web marketing industry. Their predictions show that online video advertising will represent one third of the almost $14 billion that will be entering the market from 2010-2014.

via billboard.biz

A new study conducted by MagnaGlobal, an online advertising forecasting firm, predicts that global online ad revenues will reach $103 billion by 2015. The details of the report were broken down in an article posted on Marketingvox.com.

Over the next five years, online advertising revenue is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 11%. In 2010, revenues will hit $61 billion, up 12.4% from last year, and $68 billion in 2011, growth of 11.7%.

Of the various forms of online advertising, paid search is the largest market. In 2010 paid search will account for 49% of all ad revenue, earning $29.8 billion, growing 16.5% from 2009. Of the companies that are involved with paid search, Google is the global superpower, but in the emerging markets of China and Russia, Baidu and Yandex are also growing at an increasingly fast clip.

Paid search aside, all other online advertising revenue streams will make up 51% of the whole market in 2010 with $31.2 billion, up 8.7% from 2009. Interestingly, the sources of these ads are much more spread out compared to paid search. Furthermore, social community sites like Facebook are rapidly becoming advertising powerhouses as they seek to secure new ad revenue streams.

So the question remains, what is driving the growth? MagnaGlobal believes that it isn’t consumers, but rather a small number of businesses that are creating competitive intensity between advertisers and other similar brands. The growing presence of other large companies who are turning from traditional media platforms to the Internet is also helping to promote such strong market growth.

via MarketingVox

The newspaper industry posted the slowest decline in ad revenue since 2007 in the last year, that’s according to an Associated Press report discussed on Star News Online. The news, however is mixed. Newspaper ad revenue dropped 10% in the Q1 2010 from the previous year. Incredibly, that’s the smallest decline since the end of 2007.

It was growth in the online sector that helped to slow down the negative downtrend. Online ad revenues grew by 5 percent since last year. But across the whole industry, online ads only accounted for $730 million, while print ads earned $6 billion. It is a relatively small piece of the pie, but important nonetheless.

While the news is welcomed by the newspaper industry, the numbers speak for themselves. Newspaper ad revenues have dropped a precipitous 46% since four years ago. But somehow the industry still has hope that ad revenues will level out. In a statement by AP they said, “Although newspapers are still hurting, the first-quarter trend offered the latest sign that the misery may not last much longer. The industry’s year-over-year declines in ad revenue have eased in each of the last three quarters.”

John Sturm, NAA President and CEO from Scarborough Research firm also stated that “nearly 100 million adults continue to read a print newspaper every day and 168 million adults read a newspaper in print or online in the past week. In addition, the latest Nielsen Online data found that newspaper websites attracted a record 74.4 million unique visitors per month on average in the first quarter of 2010 – more than one-third (37 percent) of all Internet users.”

These are the kind of stats have helped increase overall confidence as the industry waits with eager longing to regain the stability that kept the newspaper advertising industry afloat years ago.

via Star News Online

Facebook is now serving more banner ads than any other site on the Internet, according to Cnet. This is big news as it puts Facebook ahead of it’s main competition, Yahoo!, for the very first time.

Facebook’s wild growth doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. According to the ComScore study (referenced in this article), Facebook’s display ad impressions reached 176.3 billion in the first quarter of 2010, up almost 200% from the previous year. Yahoo! trailed behind with 131.5 billion and Microsoft with 60.1 billion impressions. Over the same time last year, Facebook trailed Yahoo! as well as Fox Interactive Media.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this changing of the guard, is that Yahoo! and Microsoft both display ads on sites outside their massive network, while Facebook only displays ads on its site. This, of course, may change as many within the rumor mill claim that the social media behemoth will soon  launch their own ad network. The rumors are perpetuated by Facebook’s desire to expand their overall web presence by providing new social plugins and personalization products.

Via CNet