No, that’s not a disconnect. The increase in internet ad revenue is impressive but online ads remain a relatively small part of the company’s overall ad picture. That explaings today’s lowered ad revenue guidance from CFO Len Foreman: “While advertising revenues in the second quarter have exhibited modest year-over-year improvement, the ad market remains uneven across categories and markets. … So far in June we have not seen a continuation of May’s strength, and June ad revenues are currently trending lower than anticipated, although still above the same period last year.” The revised guidance predicts a low-to-mid single-digit growth rate for 2Q05; mid single-digit growth was the initial guidance..
As for May, overall ad revenue was up 4.1 percent while company revenues rose 2.4 percent compared to May 2004. For a look at About’s impact, consider this: excluding About.com, ad revenues would have increased 2.0 percent and total revenues 1.0 percent.
About showed “strong” ad growth in May, up approximately 25 percent, thanks to telecom, travel and tech categories; it also had gains in auto, packaged goods and financial ads.
For the media groups, online ad revenues rose 23.1 percent with a boost from display advertising and across all classified categories. Through May, online ad revenue is up 28.8 percent.
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