Yesterday, Neal Mohan, Google’s Vice President of Display Advertising, delivered a keynote speech at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Innovation Days @ Internet Week, in which he made six predictions about improved display ad performance by 2015. You can read his six predictions in full on Google’s blog: There’s a Perfect Ad for Everyone.
To highlight some of his predictions, Mohan says that the number of display ad impressions will decrease by 25% per person, but the level of ad engagement will increase by 50%. This follows suit with Google’s “user-focused revolution,” the addition of things like the +1 button that aim to declutter ad space with more relevant and engaging ads. Mohan also predicts that display advertising will grow to be a $200 billion industry.
Of course all of us paid search marketers hope Mohan is right and would love to see people not only engage with display ads, but enjoy doing so. And maybe with a more user-dictated environment people will see more of what they want, or rather marketers will have more insight into what searchers actually want and will be armed with the tools to deliver better content. As Andy Beal points out on Marketing Pilgrim, Google obviously has a vested interest in making these claims, but all us PPCers will benefit if Mohan is correct. It is reasonable to think that as searchers have more and more of a “vote” in the content and ads they are served, and as marketers listen to these votes, that searchers and marketers will strike more of a harmonious balance.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on Google’s predictions. Do they seem reasonable to you? Do you see display advertising having more of a pull for searchers? How do you see display advertising responding to the growing reality of social search? Let us know if the comments below.
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