Decoding Digital Adspend Numbers & Debunking Revolutionary Theory
The scale of the internet is difficult to measure but at present it’s estimated at between 17 billion and 25 billion pages (see these charts from worldwidewebsize.com) with Google carrying over one trillion URLs. That’s an unimaginable amount of content in which to find what you’re looking for, which is precisely why Google raked in $50 billion in revenue last year - creating some order in this gargantuan tangle of information overload.
Now, where is that revolution everyone was talking about?
I could keep producing statistics but that’s tedious, so I’ll move on to why I believe online advertising will remain a small player for many years to come, particularly in emerging markets like South Africa. By online I mean display ads on the internet accessed via a personal computer, tablet device or mobile phone, and which includes social channels. If there’s blame to be laid I point directly at the digital players themselves. Consider for a moment that the internet really expanded exponentially on the back of social media. Then consider that every single significant social platform started life as an advertising free channel, of its own accord. They avoided monetisation at all costs as I noted in my previous article about the decision Facebook took last year to add interruption model advertising to its offering, thereby doubling its revenue.
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