THE ECONOMICS OF THE ONLINE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY David S. Evans * Founder, Market Platform Dynamics Visiting Professor/University College London and Lecturer/University of Chicago Law School January 2008 Contact information: David S. Evans Market Platform Dynamics
[email protected] * The author would like to thank Thomas Eisenmann, Shane Pedersen, Martin Peitz, Greg Sivinski, Daniel Garcia Swartz, and, especially, Howard Chang for many helpful insights and discussions and Marina Danilevsky, Melissa DiBella, and Sokol Vako for exceptional research support. The author has benefited from numerous discussions with people in the online advertising industry including, in particular, Scot McLernon and Bruce Jaret, who were previously with CBS Digital Media. Research support was provided by Microsoft, for which the author expresses his gratitude. One Main Street ● 3rd Floor ● Cambridge, MA 02142 Market Platform Dynamics © 2008 t. 617.374.4700 ● f. 617.474.1339 ● www.marketplatforms.com 1 ABSTRACT Online advertising has grown rapidly in the last decade. It now accounts for almost a seventh of all advertising spending and contributes to the preponderance of revenues for most websites. It is projected to increase sharply as more consumers spend time online on their personal computers and as additional devices such as mobile phones and televisions are connected to the web. This article describes the market structure of the online advertising industry and several complex economic aspects of it. Using the lens of the new economics of multi-sided platforms it examines search-based advertising platforms, as well as platforms that facilitate the buying and selling of advertising space on websites. The unique features of online advertising include the use of Internet-based technologies and data collection mechanisms to target and track specific individuals, and to automate the buying and selling of advertising inventory.