2004 Online Ad Spend: Search Is Hot, But Contextual Pollution Of Figures Continues
As Gary mentioned earlier, online ad spending figures for all of 2004 were recently released by the IAB. What do they show specifically for search? Up, up, up, no matter
how you want to slice it, though mixing in spending on contextual ads doesn’t give a completely clear figure.
The IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report is available (PDF format) to anyone and has plenty of charts and details.
Another nice chart is over in the press release about the report. I used those figures to sort the data differently and
put search in better perspective, which you’ll in the version of this post for Search
Engine Watch members.
That extended post also looks in depth at the giant flaw with report, the failure to
break out contextual ads from search. They aren’t the same as search, as I explain — and counting them as search pollutes the data.
I also look at how the recent Google CPM pricing for contextual ads is finally generating more awareness
that contextual isn’t search, as well as what I’ve long written, that Google and Yahoo aren’t
tech companies, aren’t search companies but are ad or media companies.