14 DAY TRIAL // Google is an advertising company at heart, though that's probably not the first thing that comes to mind about it. But it is what pays the bills at the company. It's also a dominant force in online advertising as the single biggest ad network on the web.
It's not lacking in clients, but that doesn't mean it can't have more. In an effort to convince more people and to inform its existing clients, Google has published the Display Business Trends: Publisher Edition report (PDF).
It focuses on display ads, obviously, either via AdSense or its ad exchange. The report focuses on several areas of interest, such as Channel Mix, which talks about the different ad channels publishers can use, Publisher Vertical and Geographic Comparisons, Ad Sizes, Mobile Web Ad Impressions and Video ads.
"Over 2 million AdSense publishers like you create the unique and diverse content that we all love - whether it’s finding reviews for a new restaurant, or do-it-yourself furniture makeovers. Online advertising helps fuel this creativity, and we’ve been improving our products to help you make the most of every opportunity," Google boasts.
One interesting metric that Google highlights is ad size choices. Google offers a variety of ad sizes, yet it's only three of them that make up 80 percent of all ads served by the Google display ad network. The three most popular sizes are medium rectangle, leaderboard and skyscraper.
"In 2011, we found that Shopping, Sports, and Auto & Vehicle sites were some of the fastest year-on-year growth verticals on the Ad Exchange and AdSense. We saw impressive figures across the board, with 15 out of 25 publisher verticals displaying double-digit growth," Google highlighted the verticals that grew the most in the previous year.
The company also highlights mobile usage, something it constantly talks about. It says display ads saw a 250 percent increase in impression in the last three months of the previous year alone, a huge jump any way you look at it. Mobile advertising may still not be considered big, but it's going to be very, very soon.