YouTube leads Google charge in display ad market

Google on Tuesday outlined a strategy for seizing a bigger share of online display advertising that has long been a key stronghold for rival Yahoo!

Google said the home pages of its globally-popular video-sharing website YouTube have become hot venues for display ads.

Google has been masterful at pumping revenue out of "pay-per-click" link advertising paired with results of Internet searches.

An unrelenting boom in video, television and film being delivered online offers opportunity to make cash by weaving in advertising targeted to the interests of viewers.

Google executives said that ad-targeting technology from DoubleClick, which it bought in 2007 for 3.1 billion dollars, is at the core of its online display advertising strategy.

"We want to simplify how display advertising is bought and sold," Google vice president of product management Neal Mohan said during a webcast outlining the company's approach to the market.

"Our aim is to democratize the display advertising ecosystem to allow more businesses to participate."

DoubleClick acts as a display advertising "stock exchange" and Google then provides a simple tool for businesses to create online marketing campaigns.

Google said it is seeing "tremendous success" in the display advertising market and is winning business from top advertisers.

YouTube has sold 90 percent of the display advertising space on its US homepages this year, according to Tom Pickett, director of online sales and operations at the service.

"We are also now seeing good results on home pages internationally, but we've just scratched the surface so there is lots of head room," Pickett said.

YouTube has tripled the number of "monetized views" and earns ad revenue on more than a billion of the online videos watched weekly, according to Pickett.

"This has been a terrific year for us in display advertising," Mohan said.

(c) 2009 AFP