The ad network space has gone through some major changes in the last couple years, and the transformation doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon. The latest evidence of this showed up in a recent report by content-tracking firm, Attributor, which said that Google now owns 57% of the ad-serving market. We’ve always considered AOL and Microsoft (as well as Yahoo!) to be power players alongside Google, but apparently, AOL and Microsoft only own 6.6% and 3.8% of the market, respectively. Incidentally, both come in behind Revenue Science on Attributor’s top 5, which is what initially caught my eye about this report.

http://www.cio-today.com/news/Google-Dominates-Ad-Serving-Market/story.xhtml?story_id=11200AAKMO2O&full_skip=1

“Although Google isn't seeing a significant threat from Microsoft or Yahoo! -- or even a so-called Microhoo -- the company did witness an explosion of new ad networks burst onto the scene in 2008. Only one, however, broke into Attributor's top-five list. That company was Revenue Science, which posted 6.7 percent of the market, coming in ahead of both AOL and Microsoft.”

So I find myself asking, how is it that Google managed to make such strides ahead of its chief competitors, and how is it that we are sharing ranks with companies of this size? This proves what I have been saying for years that the ad-serving market really is like a free country where the companies who really get it can compete with or beat the big guys, and I’m inclined to claim that behavioral targeting is a major contributing factor to that kind of success.

DoubleClick is obviously Google’s ace in the hole in this competition, because even taking away Adsense, Google is still a behemoth with over 30% of the market share. DCLK has the reach, but the explosion of new ad networks in 2008 has been fueled by behavioral targeting. BT was a major draw to make ad networks attractive acquisitions in 2007, and it’s a factor in this fundamental shift in the ad-serving space. Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL all own ad networks, but does that mean they have effectively integrated and leveraged the BT capabilities that came along with them? These numbers seem to suggest room for improvement.

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