Facebook Serves Nearly a Fourth of U.S. Display Ads

Facebook's share of U.S. display ad impressions has grown from 9.2 percent last year in Q3 to 23.1 percent this year, easily placing the social site first in sheer volume among online ad sellers. With that remarkable growth accomplishment, any remaining doubters about Facebook's ability to monetize its platform should probably say "uncle."

According to new research from comScore, the Palo Alto, CA-based Facebook garnered 297 billion display ad impressions during July, August, and September in the U.S. alone. Andrew Lipsman, spokesperson for the Reston, VA-based research firm, said Facebook's meteoric rise in the advertising world has been staggering.

"We’ve been reporting display ads for about 3-plus years, and this is the most rapid growth I’ve seen from a top publisher in that time period," Lipsman said. "From a historical standpoint, however, it’s possible that MySpace’s original ascent was somewhat similar. Or even AOL and Yahoo back in the day. That said, Facebook’s rapid increase in display ad market share is a testament to its rapidly increasing audience and engagement, which provide it with more advertising opportunities."

Yahoo properties came in second with almost 141 billion display ad impressions, or 11 percent of the market. Microsoft properties (5 percent) were third, Fox Interactive Media (3.8 percent) was fourth, Google properties (2.7 percent) were fifth, and Aol (2.5 percent) was sixth.

A prepared release by comScore stated that display ads for the research included static and rich media ads, but excluded video ads, house ads, and ads less than 2,500 pixels in dimension.

Additionally, comScore says the top 10 brand advertisers in Q3 by estimated online display spending market share were as follows: Scottrade (1.9 percent), AT&T (1.7 percent), Experian (1.2 percent), Verizon (1.1 percent), Progressive (1.0 percent), Netflix (1.0 percent), GM (0.8 percent), Walt Disney (0.8 percent), Toyota (0.7 percent), and Procter & Gamble (0.6 percent).