19 July 2010 | Author: J. Morton Search Copywriter

Facebook extends UK web advert dominance

Adverts carried by the social networking giant generated in the UK have grown by 33 per cent in the past year, research reveals.

As traditional brand names continue to swarm the social media scene with the hope of gaining increased exposure for their products, Facebook has extended its dominance in the online advertising market, accounting for some 19.7 billion ad exposures during May 2010.

This figure - reported by online information aggregator ComScore - builds on the already impressive monthly data from one year previous, when the Big Blue F displayed 11.8 billion adverts to UK users in May 2009.

"Facebook's popularity continues to surge not only with consumers but also with advertisers," said Mike Read, managing director of ComScore Europe, about the findings. "With eight billion more ads on the site versus last year, there is a clear willingness to test Facebook's ability to drive brand engagement."

The nearest competition in the online advertising market came from Microsoft Sites, which served 4.7 billion ads in May 2009. Google Sites, eBay and Yahoo Sites piled up displays of 2.71 billion, 2.68 billion, and 2.4 billion respectively.

Though many would think this would indicate Facebook was generating tremendous amounts of revenue through its UK advertising channels, some experts have said this is not necessarily the case.

"The last year has been the first year advertising has really taken off on Facebook and I think advertising will increase by more than a third again in the next year," said Mark Redgrave of semantic web service OpenAmplify. "But the key to the current growth is that it can only be measured in terms of volume, not value."

"Being there's the easy bit, CPM rates are generally cheap, the hard bit comes when marketers try and fully engage," Redgrave told Brand Republics. "The technology now exists to really understand users based on conversations."