Newspapers Finding Softness in Online Ad Growth

The Wall Street Journal reports that newspapers are experiencing softer online advertising growth this year than expected. Analysts are sharing their estimates of online ad growth:

  • Media-research firm Borrell Associates says:”The growth rate in online ad spending in newspapers will likely fall to a percentage in the low 20s this year from 28% last year.”
  • Market-research firm EMarketer predicts: “The overall growth of U.S. online-ad revenue will slow to 18.9% this year from 30.8% last year. It predicts newspapers will do slightly better.”

Two trends that are affecting this growth:

  • “Marketers are beginning to look beyond traditional journalism sites, realizing many news junkies go elsewhere, too… Advertisers are getting less scared of blogs and newsgroups and now are beginning to take money away from the traditional newspapers’ sites…”
  • “Ad formats that have so far proved strongest for newspapers — banner ads, pop-ups and listings — are losing ground to formats such as search marketing… Marketers like search advertising because it leads customers to exactly what they are looking for, and is easy to measure…”

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