Digital
ad revenue is expected to overtake ad revenue totals of any other type of media
– radio, print, TV – by 2017, according to Magna Global, as reported by The New
York Post. TV has long been the leader
in ad revenue but digital is on track to hit $72 billion and account for 38% of
all ad dollars, bypassing TV’s $70.5 billion in just a few short years. But what does this mean for the media
industry?
It’s
not a surprise that online ad revenue will rank No. 1 – only that it’s taking
this long. Think about how vast the
digital world is – over a billion Web Sites and all that social media –
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram – and tons of blogs and
podcasts and all of the big-traffic sites like Amazon.com and all of the sites
of traditional media and all of the streaming content. One would think online ads would be through
the roof. They aren’t. Why?
Because of pricing. The digital
world isn’t getting the big bucks of old media.
Perhaps it will, once old media declines further, just as Amazon will
raise prices once it further weakens its brick and mortar competition.
But
what’s interesting about online media is that the profit margin for ad revenue
should be greater than traditional media.
Whereas, say, Playboy or Cosmopolitan or The LATimes have to pay to
print the ads – on top of acquisition cost, overhead cost, etc., other sites
may not incur the same costs, though many incur costs for technology,
employees, and in some cases, to obtain the rights to content. So much of big digital runs on red ink and
borrowed money but sites like FB or Twitter get positive buzz and their stock
prices go up.
The
bigger issue is two-fold. First, as
digital grows, will ad fees increase?
Second, is the ad pie growing overall or is digital merely siphoning
money that would otherwise go to other media?
Digital
advertising can come in many forms, and it can be segmented, measured, and
priced accordingly. But one wonders if
people experience ads online in a way that leaves the same impression as ads in
other mediums do.
For
instance, if you are thumbing through the printed NY Times and come across a
full-page ad, won’t that make more of an impression on you than if you see
something listed to the side of a website?
Not only does that physical ad have a better chance of getting your
attention, you assign it a higher value simply because you know such an ad
costs a lot of money and makes a statement.
I don’t know of the equivalent online.
In
any event, the ad dollars are up 20% since the lowest depths of the Great
Recession and are back to where they were pre-recession – which still means
more growth is to come.
BLASTS FROM THE PAST
When
pitching your book to online media, follow these steps:
Your book
is great! But does it suck?
Patent
advice from bestselling author
Writers
must think like the media to get coverage
Ready for
your million-dollar book launch?
How to
publish for profit – really!
How to
keep on top of book industry news, trends, resources
Attitude
adjustment for those promoting books
24 tips
to pitch the media
27 tips
to pitch the media like a pro
Is your
book pr bipolar?
Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014
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