Google to outdo ITV in UK ad revenue?

Google looks set to achieve more advertising revenue than ITV in the UK this year, as the search giant goes from strength to strength in this country, analysis has suggested.

If Google does outdo ITV in 2011, the search giant will become the biggest ad earner in the country, the Guardian reported.

Google's ad revenue should fall between 2.4 billion and 2.55 billion, when taking into account both growth rates and "traffic acquisition costs" Google pays to partners for helping bring in business.

ITV should see ad revenues reaching 1.7 billion if it can achieve 15 per cent growth in the segment this year.

In the UK, Google has over 90 per cent market share in the search engine marketing segment (SEM), according to a report from Efficient Frontier released earlier this month.

Google's financial successes in the advertising area could temper investor concerns surrounding the reign of Larry Page as chief executive.

Company spending shot up by 54 per cent over the last quarter. Expenses during the period hit $2.84 billion as Google invested heavily in new areas and ramped up its recruitment drive. Net revenue, meanwhile, went up by 29 per cent.

Page's brief comments during last week's post-earnings conference call, in which the CEO said little apart from mentioning his optimism in the company before leaving without taking questions, were followed, on Friday, by Wall Street selling the firm's stock down by over eight per cent.

However, Google's return on investment in SEM has decreased by 12 per cent, year-on-year, according to Efficient Frontier.

Facebook, meanwhile, looks set to see its own ad revenue increase across the globe as marketers start to realise how lucrative the social networking giant could be.

"We're seeing great demand for Facebook's ad products as the social networking giant's ad offerings continue to evolve," said David Karnstedt, president and CEO of Efficient Frontier.

The findings came amid positive outlooks for the digital marketing sector.

"The strong showing for digital marketing in the first quarter of 2011 was in line with our prediction of a 15 per cent to 20 per cent increase in spend in 2011," Karnstedt added.

"This is all solid evidence of an economic recovery, and that marketers are seeing tremendous results when they intelligently allocate their marketing spend and optimize across channels."