eBay Rules Sponsored Links
Retail goods and Web media hold the highest market share in sponsored links with a substantial volume of impressions.
In its first report on the number of ad impressions delivered via sponsored links, Nielsen//NetRatings ‘ AdRelevance unit declares eBay the king of such ad units.
The auction giant placed almost 400 million sponsored link impressions, representing three percent of the market, for the week ending August 21. Shopping.com placed 138 million sponsored link impressions in that time, totaling more than one percent of the market.
Other big players include InterActiveCorp, MyCashNow.com, and Yahoo, but each amounted to less than one percent of the market.
“The plethora of well-known brands — both product-based and stores — easily lend themselves to the use of sponsored search links, because the user is actively seeking that specific brand within a search session,” Heather Dougherty, senior retail and travel analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, told ClickZ Stats.
| Top Companies by Sponsored Link Impressions, Week Ending August 21, 2005 | |
|---|---|
| Industry | Impressions (000) |
| eBay Inc. | 378,525 |
| Shopping.com Inc. | 138,307 |
| InterActiveCorp | 97,969 |
| MyCashNow.com | 93,751 |
| Yahoo Inc. | 90,544 |
| Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, 2005 | |
By industry, retail and Web media place the highest with 22 percent and 21 percent of market share respectively. Financial services companies place six percent of sponsored links, travel firms place five percent, and business-to-business advertisers buy three percent of the sponsored links.
| Top Industries by Total Sponsored Link Placements, Week Ending August 21, 2005 | |
|---|---|
| Industry | Sponsored Link Share of Impressions (%) |
| Retail goods and services | 22 |
| Web media | 21 |
| Financial services | 6 |
| Travel | 5 |
| Business-to-business | 3 |
| Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, 2005 | |
Nielsen//NetRating’s AdRelevance reports on branded ad platform technologies that support online ad delivery. It tracks sponsored link campaigns and search terms listed by industry or advertiser.
