17 May 10

Comscore findings reveal Facebook as the biggest US publisher of display ads

According to the internet traffic monitoring company Comscore, Facebook delivered 176.3 billion display ads to US users in the first quarter of 2010 - equating to a 16.2% share of the market and overtaking Yahoo for the first time to become the largest online display ad publisher in the US.

The research placed Yahoo 2nd and Microsoft 3rd - serving up 131.5 billion and 60.2 billion display ads respectively. Myspace, which featured 2nd in last year’s study only managed 4th place.

Comscore attributes Facebook’s growth in display ads to the popularity and more widespread use of the social networking site. According to Facebook, the site now has more than 400 million active users, with 100 million users accessing the website via a mobile device.

It is worth noting however that the study’s stats do not include Yahoo and Microsoft’s display ads which are served through their ad networks, thus indicating Facebook’s dominance as a publisher only. Despite this, it cannot be denied that this is an important achievement for the social networking site and a position they will be looking to hold onto into 2010.