Google’s much anticipated Q2 earnings report has arrived and shed some light on display advertising. Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget covered the earnings conference call and jotted down the following from the Google execs:
“Display and particularly YouTube have performed very well this quarter. YouTube is now on a trajectory we’re very pleased with.”
Nikesh Arora, President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development, identified “strands: YouTube and the Google Content Network, where CPC ads are hot in a downturn.”
Nikesh added, “We are beginning to see lots of interest in Pre-roll advertising from clients. The next phase of YouTube will be pre-roll advertising. Homepage ads are big too.”
From the Google Q2 earnings press release:
“Google Sites Revenues – Google-owned sites generated revenues of $3.65 billion, or 66% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2009. This represents a 3% increase over second quarter 2008 revenues of $3.53 billion.
Google Network Revenues – Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $1.68 billion, or 31% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2009. This represents a 2% increase from second quarter 2008 network revenues of $1.66 billion.”
Updated: According to Seeking Alpha, ThinkEquity’s Bill Morrison (AdExchanger.com Q&A with Bill and Robert of TE here) asked the following about ad exchange plans:
“Do you think the bigger opportunity in the Exchange is on the double-click network of publishers or Google content network?”
Morrison received this on the call from Google’s SVP of Prodcuct, Jonathan Rosenberg:
“You know, today we’re happy with the progress on the ad exchange. We’ve integrated the existing double-click exchange with the AdWords and AdSense advertisers and it’s all on the Google infrastructure at this point.
Overall, I mean, the idea there is about creating the biggest pool we can of liquidity so advertisers will find opportunities where they can’t today and be able to monetize inventory the most efficiently. I don’t think I can give you any better insight into what the relative sizes might be.”
From his blog, Startup Whisperer, Matt Hulett (AdExchanger.com Q&A here) at Mpire, makers of AdXpose and WidgetBucks, announced today that he is stepping down from his role as CEO and assuming “an Executive Chairman role.” Matt reports that “the Mpire Board and I are actively looking for a world-class CEO with deep ad agency or brand experience in order to take it to the next level. Let me know if you have any great candidates to send our way.” We wish Matt well.
A new retargeting analytics package was announced by Fetchback on July 9 . More info here. In the release, Fetchback says, “the analytics packages reveals that nearly half of consumers return to retail sites quickly after being served its retargeting ads.” – Another reason that exchange inventory makes sense for buyers.
From Forrester’s social media blog, Groundswell, Josh Bernoff gets on his soapbox with help from a recent Shar Van Boskirk report and declares, “we are all digital marketers now, since digital is at the center of many campaigns anyway.”
Australia’s Digital Media interviews Paul Fisher, the newly appointed CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau Australia. Fisher offered this observation on differences between the online ad industry in Australia versus elsewhere:
“I think performance advertising, the combination of search and performance based display advertising, has taken a greater hold over in the UK. I’m led to believe it’s over 85% of the market in the UK and we estimate it to be about 65% here and in the US. I think that does not bode well for the Australian industry as there is a long way to slump by taking up more [performance based advertising].
I think the retail industry use online a lot more in the US and the UK than here not just for ecommerce but also as a marcomms channel, which saddens me.
Broadband is awesome in Korea, the UK and the US. They can’t build the National Broadband Network or bring down the prices of the plan fast enough quite frankly.”
More from Bill Morrison at ThinkEquity who thinks a search deal is imminent between Microsoft and Yahoo! according to 24/7 Wall Street, which cites “sources at a major client of investment house ThinkEquity.”
The Streaming Media blog notes the 10 year anniversary of Blockbuster still having no strategy for the digital space. Read more here.
Finally, The Wall Street Journal covers Comcast’s attempt to keep the ad dollars flowing for its cable partners by making available shows online to cable TV subscribers only. Turner is one participating partner. Andy Heller, vice chairman of Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting tells the WSJ’s Sam Schechner and Vishesh Kumar:
“We spend billions of dollars buying and making these programs. And if we give this stuff to consumers for free with limited ads, it’ll go away.”
Sound familiar?
