New Begun Research: Advertising in the First Quarter
The Begun analytical center conducted a study of advertiser activity and user interests in the contextual advertising service in the first quarter of 2010.Compared to the first quarter of 2009, the contextual advertising market, according to AKAR, grew by 42% between January and March of this year. While the balance of power among advertisers hasn't changed significantly, user preferences have shifted significantly.
Thus, after the active phase of the crisis passed, users began actively searching for leisure options, which increased the popularity of the "Leisure and Recreation" category: the share of clicks on ads in this category more than tripled compared to last year (from 2.7% to 10.2%). Advertisers, in turn, also increased their investments—from 1.4% to 2.3% of their total advertising budget.
The traditional leader in advertising spending is the "Auto" category. Representatives of this segment, having significantly reduced their budgets for outdoor and television advertising, strengthened their position, accounting for 9.6% of spending. However, user interest in this category declined: the number of clicks decreased by 2 percentage points to 5.2%.
Sellers of homes and other properties have resumed promotion, pushing the "Real Estate" segment to second place in the advertiser activity rankings (6.9%). The "Real Estate" category now holds the same position in the user preference rankings.
More and more banks are using contextual advertising as a promotional tool, with the share of financial advertising spending reaching 5.4%. Furthermore, the range of services promoted has expanded: credit product ads, which had been suspended during the crisis, have reappeared. Largely as a result, the click-through rate on financial institution ads increased by 2 percentage points to 5.1%.
Long-distance and wireless carriers continue to expand their presence in the "context," with the mobile troika actively pursuing an unconventional advertising channel. The "Communications" category's share of the overall advertising budget doubled to 3.9%. Users also showed greater interest in communications services than in January-March last year, rising from 20th to 7th place in the popularity rankings.
Thus, the activity of advertisers in industries forced to cut budgets during the financial instability indicates their adaptation to current market conditions and the gradual restoration of their traditional share of the overall contextual advertising budget. Meanwhile, despite a slight shift in user attention toward entertainment, topics reflecting consumer activity remain popular.
The Begun Analytical Center utilizes information on the advertising campaigns of tens of thousands of organizations across all economic sectors, the behavior of over 20 million internet users, and statistics from thousands of websites. This information informs ongoing research into the online advertising market, the results of which are regularly published on the company's website.
