Case Study

Mob War: “Google V/S Facebook Mobile Ad Revenue Shootout”

Submitted By:
Amaan Ansari

ABSTRACT

With the advent of tablets and smartphones the mobile advertisement segment has got a shot in the arm like never before. Initially termed as unnecessary cluttering of the device has entered a whole new dimension it seems as the latest reports by a World Wide Web giant, Facebook, suggest its success. So is the mobile advertisement heading for happily ever after? Reports by another World Wide Web giant, Google, suggest otherwise. The case takes into consideration the popularity, inherent qualities and limitations, pricing, challenges and scope of improvement of mobile advertising with respect to two biggest contributors to this segment i.e. Google and Facebook. So what exactly is the scenario? Let’s find out.

INTRODUCTION

Advertisers in the online realm are spoilt for choice. They have the option of utilizing large sites or a plethora of specialized websites, both large and small, to reach consumers with varied interests. However, few plans can be complete without including the big daddies viz. Google or Facebook - or both - because their sheer dominance on the web. In India, their combined estimate comes out to two-thirds of the total advertising moolah. In 2012, Google’s earnings were almost $44 billion from advertising worldwide as compared to marginally over $5 billion for Facebook. The latter is significantly smaller but plays a special role in India, whose active Facebook users are less than only that in United States. In Google's case, it drew out revenue from two avenues - 70 per cent of its revenue came from ads on its own sites while the rest was generated from advertising on network member sites, these are websites which run contextual Google ads under a publisher program called AdSense. On the other hand, Wall Street