Report Finds Top Sites Control Most Ad Revenue

While online advertising continues its phenomenal growth, the top 50 Web publishers will reap the overwhelming majority of ad dollars, accounting for 95 percent of revenues for ad-supported sites in the U.S. this year, says a new report.

The recently released eAdvertising Report, said those 50 Web publishers, which include those that produce more than one site, represent only 1.1 percent of 4,530 ad-supported U.S. Web sites.

Big Players Getting Bigger

“There’s a high degree of concentration in the online ad world,” Geoffrey Ramsey, statmaster at eMarketer, told the E-Commerce Times. “The big players are getting bigger. They’re swallowing up other companies. The earlier movers have gained the momentum, so it’s kind of a snowball effect.”

Online ad revenues in the U.S. totaled $1.5 billion in 1998 and will reach about $2.61 billion this year, the report says, with about three-quarters of that going to the top 10 publishers. The report predicts the Web ad revenues will climb to $.4.2 billion next year, $6.7 billion in 2001 and $8.9 billion in 2002.

While the number of ad-supported sites and ad revenues climb, so, too, has the percentage of ad dollars going to the top sites, the report found.

More Level Playing Field’ Predicted

But Ramsey said smaller web publishers will likely gain momentum in the next year or so as they develop niches.

“We’re going to start to see a slightly more level playing field as smaller players start to find their niches,” he said. “Soon you bring in all the niche players that start taking bites out of the bigger guys.

“It’s hard to become big in this market by just trying to offer everything to everybody at this point in the game. A couple years back, that was possible. Now, there’s too many big players offering too much stuff.”

Though the growth rate of online advertising outstrips that of any other medium, Web advertising still accounts for less than 1 percent of U.S. ad revenues, falling far short of television, newspaper and direct-mail ad revenues, Ramsey said. Online ad revenues have surpassed that of one traditional medium, billboards, which take in about $1.5 billion a year, he said.

The 102-page eAdvertising Report is based on information from hundreds of authoritative sources. More information on ordering the report is available on the eMarketer Web site.

1 Comment

  • I Read with disbelief that Top-Finds.com is a top revenue earner.Despite parking more than 100 TLD’s with them , some of them the best names available for sale today , They have never paid me 1 cent !

    Thanks for the article , I AM withdrawing all my names from TF & Clickfinders today , as they are a blatant ripoff !

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