According to a provocative commentary published over the weekend by Tech Crunch, guest columnist Hussein Fazal – CEO of AdParlor – says its only a matter of time before Facebook tops Google in advertising revenue.
And he makes a pretty compelling case. Fazal, after all, understands a thing or two about social media’s inextricable link to ad revenue gold. He’s the CEO of a firm that’s a recognized leader in handling large Facebook Ad campaigns
Chief among the myriad reasons given by Fazal for Facebook’s potential ad revenue supremacy is the fact that changes in profile design now encourage users “to provide more complete information.” As a result, advertisers are becoming increasingly more educated in the value of hyper-targeting.
Fazal also takes the time to remind readers that he’s not alone in his bold prediction for Facebook’s future. “eMarketer estimated Facebook’s ad revenues at almost $2 Billion in 2010 and over $4 Billion in 2011,” he writes.
So what’s the timeline for Facebook’s takeover of Google’s top spot in the ad revenue game? Fazal is confident but conservative in his time-tables about this eventuality.
Despite all this success, Facebook’s revenues are still far behind the search giant, and claiming that they will surpass Google is a bold statement. However, there is a very clear path for this to happen and it is simply a question of when. The timeline will be dependent on how aggressively Facebook executes on their advertising products. The fundamental reason why I believe Facebook’s revenues will surpass Google is the untapped power of social advertising. The concept that your friend “likes” and endorses the content behind a particular ad unit changes the game.
“Every few years,” Fazal concludes, “a new layer is built on top of traditional display advertising (contextual, behavioral, re-targeting) but we haven’t seen innovation in quite some time. Social will be the next fundamental change, and Facebook is positioned to take advantage of it.”
To read the full guest commentary from Tech Crunch, click here.