Ad Impressions Trend Up

Online advertisers served 124.5 billion display impressions in October--up from 110.2 billion in September, according to new data from Nielsen//NetRatings.

Financial services providers accounted for the largest share--21 percent--of impressions last month, up from 19 percent in October of 2004. Impressions by telecoms last month accounted for 16 percent of online ads--more than double last year's 7 percent share. Web media accounted for 16 percent of ads, down from 19 percent last year.

Public services ads soared to 11 percent of online impressions last month, compared to 6 percent last year. Still, the proportion declined from September--when, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, public services ads accounted for 14 percent of all online ad impressions.

Yahoo! Mail surged in popularity with Web advertisers, accounting for 15.8 percent of impressions--up from 9.1 percent last year and 8 percent in September. MySpace, which previously held the top spot, fell to number two with 10 percent of impressions; but that proportion was about flat with September's 10.1 percent. MSN's hotmail was the third most popular site for ads, capturing 6.7 percent of them--down from last year's 7.7 percent, but flat with September.

Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance doesn't include in the data ads served on proprietary America Online pages, accessed only by AOL subscribers--but counts ads that appear on AOL pages accessed via the Web.

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