U.S. Digital Advertising Will Hit $37.31 Billion By December 2012

Sites include eMarketer.com . Published on October 2nd, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

The signals that consumers are ready to start spending money again have been on the horizon for the last few months and this hasn’t been lost on advertisers—especially those in the US.

A new report by eMarketer estimates that by year-end, digital advertising will hit $37.31 billion. But that was only half the story; the interesting observation made by eMarketer is that Google is on track to topple Facebook as the leading platform for display advertising.

The estimated passing is more of a return to the top for Google. Back in 2010, the search giant had a slight edge over Facebook with 12.1% of the display ads market. That all changed in 2011 when Facebook rocketed pass Google with 14.1% of the display ads market. eMarketer estimates that the improved market share for Google will translate into $2.31 billion in revenue for US display ads; Facebook is tipped to earn $2.16 billion.

It is clear from the numbers that there isn’t much between the two companies in terms of their share of the digital advertising market. The difference between the two has been market sentiment and returns. Facebook in particular has suffered this year with the mass exodus of several big-name companies from Facebook ads. These companies cited the lack of engagement and poor ROI from their Facebook ads spend. Google on the other hand has been steadily making gains with its vast publisher network run under the Adsense program.

Victory for 2012 looks set to go to Google but the big winner is the overall digital advertising market. $37.31 billion represents not just consumer spending but the creation of jobs for thousands of people.