Are Big Brands Avoiding Advertising on AdSense?

"It's like they pull the plug on Adsense and it hurts the eCPM. "

[Mentat]

I have 9 sites some old, some new, but there are on different niches so different possible advertisers.

In the last two years I can clearly see a low inventory problem on Adsense for content, but more important is what I did not see especially this year: big brand advertising.

It's like they pull the plug on Adsense and it hurts the eCPM.

[keyplyr]

Many factors contribute to the drop in advertiser inventory including diversifying to other platforms, Facebook & other Social Media inhouse ads, etc.

I do see big brands showing in Adsense: Microsoft, Levano, Best Buy, various auto companies...

Yes it has decreased in the last few years due to several factors (including ad blockers) but IMO Adsense is still the best bet for publishers

[IanTurner]

I think there a lot of agencies going in and picking up Brand accounts - people such as Criteo, Vertoz and the like - who, if you sign up for them cherry pick your best impressions and don't give an overall revenue that is greater than adsense.

They are obviously managing to save the brands some spend using this technique.

[Mentat]

I use Criteo, but it's a drop o money into the sea.
They promise a lot, but the niche ad agency is a bust from the publisher point of view.
They want the cherry, but they pay pennies!

I see another problem: the big companies got very big and there is no need to advertise!
Hell, Amazon accounts for nearly 40% of web sales in the US from Thanksgiving Through Cyber Monday!
Why would Amazon need to spend money on advertising?

The problem is the other 60% of the sales are split between an infinity of stores, that do not have the power to compete.

From the big advertisers I only see very targeted products ads now.
No branding, no huge promotions, nothing.

I feel like the .com bubble is really about to burst. There is no cash!

[LuckyD]

Why would Amazon need to spend money on advertising?

Not sure if you're serious or not. Amazon is one of the largest advertisers out there.
Last year they spent $5.25 billion on marketing (see annual report 2015), a large part of which is advertising.

[martinibuster]

I feel like the .com bubble is really about to burst. There is no cash!

I can understand how it may appear to be. But it's not as simple as that.

1. Internet advertising is measurable to the penny and ROI is expected and demanded.

2. All online media is feeling it, even big brand sites are experiencing low CPM rates.

3. When the illusion of a premium audience is removed all that is left is bare ROI. It does not matter if the money is spent on New York Times, GQ Magazine or your website. There is no incentive for irrational pricing.

4. When all advertising is measured according to ROI there is only the market force of supply and demand to force up the cost. If the profit threshold is low then the competition for the space will also be low.

Bottom line is that Internet advertising has always, since the very beginning, been on a downward slide. Thus you see desperate schemes like native advertising popping up in an effort to create an advertising product that can sell for a premium. But the forces of ROI are weighing down all advertising on the Internet because the ROI can be measured, unlike traditional media like television and magazines where the practice of irrational pricing still exists.

[iamlost]

Web advertising has been undergoing two different adjustments:
First,
some time back SM advertising began taking ever larger pieces of the pie; granted the pie itself has been growing so that AdSense, as a whole, hasn't lost out except from potential.

However, a number of large brands have either not increased their YoY AdSense content spend or decreased it. The more places there are to spend the more diffuse the result the potentially less available via any one network. This tends to decrease ad value for a given network. A further drag on ad value is that with increased ad network choices ROI is no longer how much but how much where. AdSense has serious competition from outside (not simply between search and content) for pretty much the first time ever.

Second,
the long running impressions scam has had a particularly telling reversion of control back from agencies to principals. As martinibuster says above ROI is increasingly driving enterprise level marketing and his points are bang on.

A natural follow-on from this is that brands (and some agencies) are no longer simply shotgunning as usual; increasingly they are running the numbers to identify specific sites that convert best for them and whitelist targeting - great for those sites, bad for the rest.

It's not just ad 'term' value but 'site' value as well. If a site is being whitelisted by several brands ad value for that site increases; as a likely consequence similar ads for other niche sites lose value as competition generally is now less.

I expect advertiser third party ad network site targeting to increase: if your site(s) supply a good ad ROI... if they don't...

[EditorialGuy]

We need to remember that "programmatic" or real-time automated ad buying is a big deal these days, too--and it makes it easier for media buyers to be selective in how, where, and when they spend their money.

[ember]

Why would Amazon need to spend money on advertising?

The same reason that McDonald's and WalMart keep advertising. They are entrenched and globally known. Yet they know that to stay that way they have to constantly keep their brand in front of people.

[NickMNS]

I see big brands advertising on my site, such as McDonalds, Walmart and others. They do not account for a large share of my impressions but my niche is not typically in their target market. I do have have smaller brands, yet still big within my niche, buying a large share of the ad impressions on my site. I also see ads from this niche brand on US national network tv. So I don't agree with the OP.

[NickMNS]

MEANWHILE, ad spend on the net has diminished (particularly adsense) for many reasons

Google revenue has nearly double in the past 5 years, mostly due to advertising revenue.
According to the latest earnings release "Advertising revenue for Google during the third quarter totaled $19.8 billion, up 18 percent from $16.8 billion last year." source: [adweek.com...]

[edited by: martinibuster at 7:29 pm (utc) on Dec 6, 2016]
[edit reason] Removed reference to a now deleted political comment. [/edit]

[EditorialGuy]

I see big brands advertising on my site, such as McDonalds, Walmart and others.

Also, what constitutes a "big brand" may be in the eye of the beholder. Is Royal Caribbean Cruises a "big brand"? I'd say so, but someone who's more into fast food, retail, soft drinks, etc. might disagree.

[martinibuster]

The real-world fact is that digital advertising has been steadily increasing for the past few years.
Read facts about 2016 digital advertising growth and forecasts for 2017 here. [mediapost.com]

Fact: In 2016 digital advertising grew by over 7% and even excluding Olympic and political advertising, digital advertising still grew by over 5%.

Ninety percent of digital advertising growth has been focused on search and social. Display advertising in the United States grew at a significantly lower pace. It's worse for the European display advertising market where it actually shrank.

Here are some professional forecasts for digital advertising in 2017: [mediapost.com]

• Digital advertising is expected to finally surpass TV advertising.
  
  
• Global political and economic uncertainty is forecasted to cause digital advertising growth to shrink to 3.6% to 4.4% in 2017. Digital advertising is still forecasted to continue to grow, but at a slower pace.
  
  
• Excluding the exceptional recession years of 2008-2009, 2017 is forecasted to experience the slowest rate of growth in fifteen years.
  
  
• Of 70 global markets researched, 63 experienced increases.
  
  
• India, followed by Russia are the fastest growing digital advertising markets
  
  
• Growth in digital ad sales were driven by the hot Mobile sector, up by 47%
  
  
• Mobile advertising accounts for 45% of all digital ad spending in 2016. Forecasted for 52% in 2017.
  
  
• Desktop advertising is stagnated at 0% growth.
  
  
• Video and social advertising are growth areas
  
  
• Search is still where the majority of digital ad spending is concentrated
  
  
• Banner ad sales declined 5%
  

[IanCP]

I agree with MB. Folks I know in the advertising departments of news outlets are bemoaning the increasing loss of revenues as time goes by. Not because the advertisers are cutting back online - simply because as MB said:

Ninety percent of digital advertising growth has been focused on search and social

Clearly big advertisers go to where they get the "biggest bang for their buck" for their advertising dollar. I'm told Facebook is a huge winner - something I wouldn't know.

The advertisers must know what works for them. And it isn't us.

[tangor]

Might be as simple as the ad spend goes to sites advertisers like. If down, look to see if your niche has been deprecated.

[super70s]

Why would Amazon need to spend money on advertising?

Not sure if you're serious or not. Amazon is one of the largest advertisers out there.
Last year they spent $5.25 billion on marketing (see annual report 2015), a large part of which is advertising.

Surely most of that is TV advertising for products like Fire and Kindle, we're talking about the web here.