A survey of 60 media executives conducted by Deutsche Bank indicated that 65% of the respondents said that paid search spending increased during the last quarter, which spanned from October to December 2005, compared to the third quarter of last year.
Google received 57% of the total spending, while Yahoo! received 23%, and MSN received 5%. Average cost-per-click was approximately 58 cents. The report noted that it was difficult to measure this number with complete accuracy.
Meanwhile, online ad spending jumped 15% in the fourth quarter of 2005 as compared to the third quarter. This was more than the 10% increase expected by Deutsche Bank and MediaPost. On average, the cost of premium inventory increased 6%, while run-of-network inventory rose approximately 3%, and pay-per-click prices increased 5% according to respondents.
About 72% of media executives responding to the survey indicated that clients spent more on online advertising in the fourth quarter of 2005, while CPM averaged $16.71 on premium sites and $8.47 on run-of-network inventory.
About 16% of the respondents also said that their clients’ branded advertising budgets were spent on ad networks. This is an increase of 5% from the prior quarter’s 11%. AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! took about 30% of this share, while niche sites such as Marketwatch and iVillage received about 33%.
Sources:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/
060117-092551
http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/
2006/01/17/4q_online_advertising_
beats_media_execs_expectations/
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