U.S. Online Display Advertising Market Delivers 22 Percent Increase in Impressions vs. Year Ago

RESTON, Va., Nov. 8, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of the U.S. online display advertising market for Q3 2010, which showed strong gains following softness for much of 2009. Data from the comScore Ad Metrix online advertising intelligence service indicated that nearly 1.3 trillion display ads were delivered to U.S. Internet users during the third quarter, marking a 22-percent increase versus year ago.

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*Display ads include static and rich media ads; excludes video ads, house ads and very small ads (< 2,500 pixels in dimension)

"The U.S. online display advertising market exhibited considerable strength in the third quarter with nearly 1.3 trillion ad impressions delivered," said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president. "Just one year ago we were still in the midst of an advertising recession, but several growth drivers have contributed to sustained improvements over the past few quarters. The ability to buy specific audiences is enabling a greater number of display ads to be delivered on target, display formats are improving at a rapid rate, and the quality of creative is getting better every day. As publishers prove the value of online display ad campaigns, digital should continue to carve out a bigger piece of the advertising pie."

Facebook Ranks as Top Display Ad Publisher in Q3 2010

Popular social networking site Facebook.com led all online publishers in Q3 2010 with 297 billion display ad impressions, representing 23.1 percent market share. Facebook's market share has increased 13.9 percentage points from 9.2 percent in Q3 2009. Yahoo! Sites ranked second during the most recent quarter with 140 billion impressions (11.0 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 64 billion impressions (5.0 percent) and Fox Interactive Media with 48 billion impressions (3.8 percent).

*Display ads include static and rich media ads; excludes video ads, house ads and very small ads (< 2,500 pixels in dimension)

AT&T Ranks as Top Display Advertiser in Q3 2010

AT&T ranked as the top online display advertiser in Q3 with 21.1 billion impressions, accounting for 1.6 percent of display ads. Scottrade ranked second with 14.9 billion impressions (1.2 percent), followed by Verizon with 14.6 billion impressions (1.1 percent).

Additional findings from Q3 2010 include:

• The top advertisers in Q3 by estimated online display spending market share were: Scottrade (1.9 percent), AT&T (1.7 percent), Experian (1.2 percent), Verizon (1.1 percent) and Progressive (1.0 percent). Rounding out the top ten were: Netflix (1.0 percent), GM (0.8 percent), Walt Disney (0.8 percent), Toyota (0.7 percent), and Procter & Gamble (0.6 percent).
• The average U.S. Internet user was delivered more than 6,000 display ads over the course of the quarter.
• 109 different advertisers delivered at least 1 billion display ad impressions during the quarter, up from 76 last year.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

SOURCE comScore, Inc.