Facebook begins to nibble at Google’s toes

Why bother re-inventing the wheel? When it comes to making money online, it seems Facebook is simply taking a fat leaf out of Google’s big ad book.
Latest figures from the US say Facebook booked $1.86 billion in advertising in 2010. The estimates from eMarketer reveal the $1.86 billion was an 86% increase over the social network’s 2009 ad booking figure of $740 million.
What’s interesting is that the majority of last year’s revenues ($1.21 billion) came from outside of the US. The majority of this money was also from small and medium companies rather than from multinationals and blue chips. This means media agencies didn’t get much of the pie as smaller businesses self served their ads and marketing campaigns.
The big guns of the marketing world (Coke, P&G, Unilever etc.) spent approximately $740 million dollars with Facebook last year and are likely to increase that spend over the coming year. The biggest brands know that Facebook is the richest treasure trove of consumer information in the world. It’s probably good for them to forge relationships with such a publisher.
While Facebook’s revenues pale in comparison to Google’s (the search giant brings in approx. $2 billion a month), estimates suggest it now owns 5% of the self serve online ad market globally and will own at least 8% of it by end of 2011.