Display Ad Networks in ’09: Up, Down or Stable?

Much of the discussion on this morning’s ILM:08 panel titled “Localizing the Ad Nets: Display Channels” revolved around discussion of what was to become of the display ad network environment in 2009. Panelists Shawn Riegsecker (CEO of Centro) and Russ Fradin (CEO of Adify) had differing views on this area. Fradin expects the display market to decline in the single-digit range in 2009, while Riegsecker is still optimistic about the display market and is projecting 20 percent growth for his own company in this space in the next year.

Fradin believes we cannot ignore that some industries that have been driving this space, like mortgage or credit companies and auto dealers, are nearly going out of business and that we’re starting to see wholesale pricing drops in CPMs. To that point, the panel, which included Lat49 President and COO Keith Ippel, agreed that CPM rates, which had been holding steady in the $8 to $10 range for the past couple of years, declined to the $6 to $7 range this year.

Ippel, meanwhile, took more of a middle-of-the-road approach, believing that display spend would be stable, helped out by the consumer products industry. Ippel believes we can’t lose sight of the P&G’s of the world as they tend to spend more in a down year as they try to maintain or gain market share.

Another interesting takeaway regarding 2009 was the view from the panelists that ad spending for both social networks and mobile is going to take a hit next year as those media are considered experimental and will be the first to go in ad budget planning.