A new forecast from Borrell Associates predicts massive growth in ad revenues this year, as reported on Mediapost. Overall the Borrell report, “The Social Networking Explosion: Ad Revenue Outlook” has social network ad spending increasing 68% from $4 billion in 2009 to $7.5 billion in 2010, then continuing to grow every year to about $38 billion in 2015. The 2015 figure will represent approximately a third of all U.S. online marketing spending. According to the report, 2009 ad spending was divided roughly in two: half coming from local advertisers, the other half split between national brands.
Mediapost also references a report from eMarketer, released in December 2009, that estimates social network ad revenues in 2009 at $2.2 billion, a little over half the Borrell estimate. Even factoring in another third for the additional spending which Borrell says go to promotions (not advertising), that comes to just $2.9 billion, still significantly lower than the figure predicted by the Borrell report.
According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook might make $1 billion in 2010, up from about $800 million in 2009. The separate (December 2009) figures from eMarketer have MySpace revenues at $465 million in 2009, decreasing 23% to $360 million in 2010. Twitter execs forecast $140 million in ad revenue in 2010, while Classmates.com had about $80 million in ad revenue in 2009 and is on course for similar performance in 2010. This leaves MediaPost to speculate about which social networks are responsible for the rest of the current and future (projected) spending.
