Shopping Ad Impressions Surge on Google Display Platforms

June 1, 2012

google-display-impression-growth-by-vertical-in-2011-may2012.jpgThe majority of publisher verticals experienced double-digit growth in monetized impressions across Google AdSense and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange in 2011, according to a May 2012 report from DoubleClick. The shopping (37%) vertical showed the most rapid year-over-year growth, ahead of pets and animals (27%) and sports (25%), with auto and vehicles (24%), home and garden (23%), hobbies and leisure (23%), and science (22%) closely following. In all, 15 of the 25 verticals showed double-digit growth, and only 3 experienced significant declines: business and industrial (-25%); online communities (-21%); and reference (-14%).

Mobile Impressions Soar

The study reveals a dramatic rise in mobile ad impressions on the Ad Exchange and AdSense platforms, increasing by 250% over Q3 and Q4 2011. Examining Q4’s data, the report finds that all publisher verticals save for travel (9%) experienced double-digit growth in impressions, with the highest growth again belonging to shopping, at 69%. Food and drink (61%), people and society (47%), reference (45%), books and literature (45%), and online communities (43%) all also experienced healthy growth. It is interesting to note that 2 of the verticals that saw overall ad impressions decline, reference and online communities, both posted among the largest growth rates on mobile.

Half of Video Ads Run Between 15 and 30 Seconds

The “Display Business Trends Publisher Edition” also analyzes activity on the DFP video platform, finding that publisher video impressions rose nearly 70% in the second half of 2011. Roughly 51% of the video ads were between 15 and 30 seconds in length, while a greater share were more than 30 seconds (36%) than less than 15 seconds (13%).

The average midpoint completion rate of a video ad was 79%.

Other Findings:

  • Defining CPM as the amount a publisher earned for delivering a thousand impressions through a single ad unit, the DoubleClick report indicates that the health vertical had the highest indexed CPM, at 257. On the other end of the spectrum, law and government had the lowest indexed CPM, at 46.
  • The US contributed the largest share of total impressions, at 24.7%, followed by China (10.5%) and Japan (5.7%). CPM in the US grew by 11% between Q3 and Q4.
  • The top 3 ad formats – medium rectangle, leaderboard, and skyscraper – accounted for close to 80% of all ad impressions served.
  • Mobile optimized ad sizes saw strong growth. In particular, 320×250 experienced 119% growth between Q1 and Q4, though it accounted for just 1% of all impressions.

About the Data: The DoubleClick data sets contain tens of billions of impressions served by publishers globally for 2011. A publisher’s vertical was determined by the site’s primary content subject, while a publisher’s country was determined by their billing country.

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