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Advertising Age has a report available for purchase. It's expensive. I'm not sure what you need the info for. It may be worth it depending on your use. http://adage.com/datacenter/article?article_id=127791
There's another data page in Ad Age that lists the rank for US advertising. http://adage.com/marketertrees08update/#25 The database is an excerpt from the full report.
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ANCHORAGE - Oil companies have spent more than $1.4 million in the last months.
The Alaska Oil and Gas Association spent more than $800,000 on ads and public relations last fall,
Conoco Phillips spent about $600,000 in December 2007 alone on advertising.
General Electric announced its $90 million advertising campaign. In May 2005
Marc-Andre Gagnon and Joel Lexchin of Toronto's York University found that American drug companies spent US$57.5 billion on promotional activities in 2004.
IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp were the top two advertisers in b2b magazine ad spend in the US in 2006, according to data from TNS Media Intelligence. IBM spent an estimated $92.9 million on b2b print ads, up 12.9% from $82.3 million in 2005, while No.2 Microsoft spent an estimated $67.4 million, down 16 per cent from $80.2 million in 2005.
AT&T, however, increased its spending on b2b print ads from $5.4 million in 2005 to an estimated $23.2 million last year, up 330%.
Hewlett-Packard Co,The third largest advertiser in b2b magazines last year which spent an estimated $47.3 million, up 10.8% from 2005.
Source(s):
http://juneauempire.com/stories/021808/sta_248201939.shtml /Oil Companies
http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/01/04/drug-companies-spend-more-on-ad...
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I can't even find an up-to-date report with that kind of detail available for purchase, never mind for free.
But there are two useful data sources that you can combine that will help you get a handle on what might be happening. Depending on what you want to do with the info - e.g. want to target them for selling ad space to? - this may be enough for you to act on.
First, this report from IAB/ PwC gives you a good picture of US online advertising in 2008, and how it's been changing over time.
http://www.iab.net/media/file/IAB_PwC_2008_full_year.pdf
It has lots of useful info, and most relevant to your question it breaks down the spending by industry sector. It doesn't go down to individual companies, but it does tell you things like:
Sector - % of US online ad spend
Retailers - 22% ($5bn)
Financial Services - 13%
Auto - 12%
Computing - 12%
Telco - 9%
CPG & Food - 6%
Leisure & Travel - 6%
Media - 5%
CPG = Consumer Packaged Goods.
If you're after the actual companies, the best info I've seen is in the source found by @dumblonde:
http://wiep.net/talk/seo/online-ad-spending-of-the-top-25-us-advertising-companies/
However, that report was written in 2007, based on data from 2006. So if you want to make a call on what the current picture might be, take the company level data from there and then apply the trend and sector level data from the other report to take a stab at what it might look like today.
The original source orders the data by total advertising spend in all media. Just using Excel to re-jig the data into online spend order we get this:
Company - Online ad spend 2006 ($m)
AT&T 169
Walt Disney Co, 133
Verizon Communications 124
General Motors Corp, 118
Ford Motor Co, 99
Time Warner 91
Sony Corp, 74
General Electric 61
Toyota Motor Corp 56
Procter & Gamble Co, 54
DaimlerChrysler 45
Bank of America Corp, 43
Sprint Nextel Corp 38
Johnson & Johnson 34
Honda Motor Co, 34
Nissan Motor Co, 29
Unilever 28
Sears Holdings Corp, 24
Kraft Foods 23
Nestle 21
GlaxoSmithKline 15
McDonald’s Corp, 14
PepsiCo 14
L’Oreal 8
Macy’s 5
If you want more analysis than that, it'll cost you a lot more than $10. :)
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1)
The list that you're looking for does not exist.
Here's why:
A) The contact lists and associated ad budgets are closely guarded trade secrets that usually only a handful of people have clear access to.
The reason for this is simple: All any ad network or company has is the contacts that they rely on.
B) Advertisers will not release their true spending numbers (or even percentages of those numbers) because to stay one step ahead in the advertising game, you need to be on the bleeding edge.
2)
The generalizations that have been made in other answers are correct. To reiterate, the big companies with the biggest ad budgets spend the most money. Soft drink manufacturers, the auto industry, conglomerates like P&G, I.T. heavy hitters like Apple and MS, etc, all make up the largest ad buyers online.
3)
Of the "top 100" online advertisers, you'll find clearly diversified ad buys. They will spend a percentage of their online ad budget in each area (category, vertical, whatever) that they have identified, track the return in those areas and continually adjust the percentages. This is important when considering your question because unless you have upwards of a million dollars for a splash marketing campaign, you're going to want to very carefully narrow down the segments that your ads will do well in. Having a good "ad man" on the job (reference to Mad Men, not a sexist remark) will save you a lot of money and time.
4)
Bonin Bough, Global Director of Digital and Social Media at PepsiCo gave an insightful keynote and participated in conversation around PepsiCo's online ad strategy. I'm sorry that I don't have a public link available to the video of this but if you ask one of the Mesh organizers, I'm sure they'd slip you the video.
http://www.meshconference.com/bonin-bough/
Also, through lets call it "corporate strategy", Pepsico and specifically Bonin does have the up-to-date information that you're looking for.
0)
So, I've risked a non-answer here, Jason because an answer does not exist. You will find dated information that was relevant years ago, but without inside knowledge of the segments that you need to market in, you will not be able to uncover the true information that you're looking for.
Just as a quick side note, I am surprised that no one has mentioned adult internet advertising. Adult websites live and die in advertising and the budgets that many "companies" in this arena have must eclipse traditional heavy hitters.
If nothing else, please note that the online advertising industry is in what I refer to as a "revolution". Ad budgets are all over the map and if nothing else, it's a good time to pick up some deals in advertising if you have the right product, service, site or goal.
I sincerely hope that this is helpful.
Source(s):
I worked for a large ad network as a technical executive for 3 years.
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Has been seeing lot of online ads from Vonage, Dell, Verizon, Netflix, monster.com and Scottrade.
#1 InterActiveCorp owns Ticketmaster, Expedia, Ask.com, Citysearch, Match.com, Chemistry.com, Evite, LendingTree, Hotwire and Hotels.com, so it makes sense that it is #1 advertiser on the Internet.
For May 2005, The Top Ten Advertisers in Internet (according to Nielsen NetRatings)
# Advertiser Impressions
1 InterActiveCorp 3,120,962,000
2 Vonage Holdings Corp 2,916,792,000
3 LowerMyBills.com, Inc. 2,170,360,000
4 Dell Computer Corporation 2,111,319,000
5 Verizon Communications 2,046,221,000
6 Netflix, Inc. 1,914,033,000
7 SBC Communications 1,762,111,000
8 Monster Worldwide, Inc. 1,545,699,000
9 Apollo Group, Inc. 1,468,174,000
10 Scottrade, Inc. 1,463,286,000
Here is a top 50 list for April, 2005:
http://www.clickz.com/3507981
You can pay "Nielsen" to get the current data.
Though, the following are top 10 advertisers for 2008, this data does not include Internet or B-2-B Spending!!!
Top 10 advertisers spent a total of $15.5 billion in 2008 – 15% less than the year before. Not a single one of the top 10 advertisers spent more in 2008 vs. 2007. Procter & Gamble maintained its perch as the top advertiser this year, despite a 19% decline vs. 2007.
Detroit’s Big Three automakers held on to spots in the top 10, despite double-digit percentage slashes in their ad budgets. Cerberus Capital Management (Chrysler) and Ford Motor Co. cut advertising 31% and 29%, respectively. General Motors trimmed its advertising 15%. Foreign automakers Toyota and Honda each made the top 10, but they, too, slashed their ad spend 7% and 3%, respectively.
Source(s):
http://www.internetworldstats.com/top10.htm
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=8050
http://www.nielsen-online.com/press_fd.jsp?section=pr_netv&nav=3
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/tops-in-2008-top-advertisers-m...
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Answered Question
M$10
April 21, 2009 12:43 AM
Who are the top 100 advertisers on the Internet?
Looking for a list of the companies that spend the most online... top 50/100/200/whatever.
best summary of lists out there gets a huge M$10 :-)
best summary of lists out there gets a huge M$10 :-)
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Other Answers (4)
April 21, 2009 01:12 AM
I found a list from 2007 that lists 25 top advertisers. #1 is Procter and Gamble. http://wiep.net/talk/seo/online-ad-spending-of-the-top-25-us-advertising-companies/ Advertising Age has a report available for purchase. It's expensive. I'm not sure what you need the info for. It may be worth it depending on your use. http://adage.com/datacenter/article?article_id=127791
There's another data page in Ad Age that lists the rank for US advertising. http://adage.com/marketertrees08update/#25 The database is an excerpt from the full report.
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April 21, 2009 01:59 AM
Oil companies spend big on advertising ANCHORAGE - Oil companies have spent more than $1.4 million in the last months.
The Alaska Oil and Gas Association spent more than $800,000 on ads and public relations last fall,
Conoco Phillips spent about $600,000 in December 2007 alone on advertising.
General Electric announced its $90 million advertising campaign. In May 2005
Marc-Andre Gagnon and Joel Lexchin of Toronto's York University found that American drug companies spent US$57.5 billion on promotional activities in 2004.
IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp were the top two advertisers in b2b magazine ad spend in the US in 2006, according to data from TNS Media Intelligence. IBM spent an estimated $92.9 million on b2b print ads, up 12.9% from $82.3 million in 2005, while No.2 Microsoft spent an estimated $67.4 million, down 16 per cent from $80.2 million in 2005.
AT&T, however, increased its spending on b2b print ads from $5.4 million in 2005 to an estimated $23.2 million last year, up 330%.
Hewlett-Packard Co,The third largest advertiser in b2b magazines last year which spent an estimated $47.3 million, up 10.8% from 2005.
Source(s):
http://juneauempire.com/stories/021808/sta_248201939.shtml /Oil Companies
http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/01/04/drug-companies-spend-more-on-ad...
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April 21, 2009 02:29 AM
If you want to get a handle on the current biggest online spenders, I think you're going to have to do some intelligent guesswork from the available data. I can't even find an up-to-date report with that kind of detail available for purchase, never mind for free.
But there are two useful data sources that you can combine that will help you get a handle on what might be happening. Depending on what you want to do with the info - e.g. want to target them for selling ad space to? - this may be enough for you to act on.
First, this report from IAB/ PwC gives you a good picture of US online advertising in 2008, and how it's been changing over time.
http://www.iab.net/media/file/IAB_PwC_2008_full_year.pdf
It has lots of useful info, and most relevant to your question it breaks down the spending by industry sector. It doesn't go down to individual companies, but it does tell you things like:
Sector - % of US online ad spend
Retailers - 22% ($5bn)
Financial Services - 13%
Auto - 12%
Computing - 12%
Telco - 9%
CPG & Food - 6%
Leisure & Travel - 6%
Media - 5%
CPG = Consumer Packaged Goods.
If you're after the actual companies, the best info I've seen is in the source found by @dumblonde:
http://wiep.net/talk/seo/online-ad-spending-of-the-top-25-us-advertising-companies/
However, that report was written in 2007, based on data from 2006. So if you want to make a call on what the current picture might be, take the company level data from there and then apply the trend and sector level data from the other report to take a stab at what it might look like today.
The original source orders the data by total advertising spend in all media. Just using Excel to re-jig the data into online spend order we get this:
Company - Online ad spend 2006 ($m)
AT&T 169
Walt Disney Co, 133
Verizon Communications 124
General Motors Corp, 118
Ford Motor Co, 99
Time Warner 91
Sony Corp, 74
General Electric 61
Toyota Motor Corp 56
Procter & Gamble Co, 54
DaimlerChrysler 45
Bank of America Corp, 43
Sprint Nextel Corp 38
Johnson & Johnson 34
Honda Motor Co, 34
Nissan Motor Co, 29
Unilever 28
Sears Holdings Corp, 24
Kraft Foods 23
Nestle 21
GlaxoSmithKline 15
McDonald’s Corp, 14
PepsiCo 14
L’Oreal 8
Macy’s 5
If you want more analysis than that, it'll cost you a lot more than $10. :)
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April 21, 2009 03:59 AM
- New Source
The Ad Age report that the company data above was taken from is here:
http://adage.com/images/random/lna2007.pdf
It has detailed data on each of the top 100 advertising spenders in the US during 2006. (Not online, overall.)
So you can find out things like:
- Visa spent $418m, of which $17m was online
- Microsoft spent $81m online in 2006, actually 21% down from $103m in 2005.
If you are willing to plough through the whole report, you can create a probable top 100 online spenders table for 2006 from there. (Assuming that all of the top 100 online ad spenders are also in top 100 overall ad spenders somewhere, which is most likely true, or near enough for actionable purposes.)
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The list of companies in the original answers shows the online ad spend of the top 25 overall ad spenders in the US. There are companies, like Microsoft, that would appear high in a true online top 25 list, but don't make the top 25 overall ad spenders.
Report
http://adage.com/images/random/lna2007.pdf
It has detailed data on each of the top 100 advertising spenders in the US during 2006. (Not online, overall.)
So you can find out things like:
- Visa spent $418m, of which $17m was online
- Microsoft spent $81m online in 2006, actually 21% down from $103m in 2005.
If you are willing to plough through the whole report, you can create a probable top 100 online spenders table for 2006 from there. (Assuming that all of the top 100 online ad spenders are also in top 100 overall ad spenders somewhere, which is most likely true, or near enough for actionable purposes.)
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The list of companies in the original answers shows the online ad spend of the top 25 overall ad spenders in the US. There are companies, like Microsoft, that would appear high in a true online top 25 list, but don't make the top 25 overall ad spenders.
April 21, 2009 12:27 PM
I'm going to risk an "unhelpful vote" here in the hope that my comment will help, Jason. 1)
The list that you're looking for does not exist.
Here's why:
A) The contact lists and associated ad budgets are closely guarded trade secrets that usually only a handful of people have clear access to.
The reason for this is simple: All any ad network or company has is the contacts that they rely on.
B) Advertisers will not release their true spending numbers (or even percentages of those numbers) because to stay one step ahead in the advertising game, you need to be on the bleeding edge.
2)
The generalizations that have been made in other answers are correct. To reiterate, the big companies with the biggest ad budgets spend the most money. Soft drink manufacturers, the auto industry, conglomerates like P&G, I.T. heavy hitters like Apple and MS, etc, all make up the largest ad buyers online.
3)
Of the "top 100" online advertisers, you'll find clearly diversified ad buys. They will spend a percentage of their online ad budget in each area (category, vertical, whatever) that they have identified, track the return in those areas and continually adjust the percentages. This is important when considering your question because unless you have upwards of a million dollars for a splash marketing campaign, you're going to want to very carefully narrow down the segments that your ads will do well in. Having a good "ad man" on the job (reference to Mad Men, not a sexist remark) will save you a lot of money and time.
4)
Bonin Bough, Global Director of Digital and Social Media at PepsiCo gave an insightful keynote and participated in conversation around PepsiCo's online ad strategy. I'm sorry that I don't have a public link available to the video of this but if you ask one of the Mesh organizers, I'm sure they'd slip you the video.
http://www.meshconference.com/bonin-bough/
Also, through lets call it "corporate strategy", Pepsico and specifically Bonin does have the up-to-date information that you're looking for.
0)
So, I've risked a non-answer here, Jason because an answer does not exist. You will find dated information that was relevant years ago, but without inside knowledge of the segments that you need to market in, you will not be able to uncover the true information that you're looking for.
Just as a quick side note, I am surprised that no one has mentioned adult internet advertising. Adult websites live and die in advertising and the budgets that many "companies" in this arena have must eclipse traditional heavy hitters.
If nothing else, please note that the online advertising industry is in what I refer to as a "revolution". Ad budgets are all over the map and if nothing else, it's a good time to pick up some deals in advertising if you have the right product, service, site or goal.
I sincerely hope that this is helpful.
Source(s):
I worked for a large ad network as a technical executive for 3 years.
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April 21, 2009 02:17 PM
I agree. The information is near impossible to find. The closest you can find is the top advertisers overall and then see their share of internet advertising (which is available) but as you point out, it's old unless you want to pay big money for the Ad Age report which would be marginally helpful.
I also think that in some cases non-answers are valid, especially if there really isn't an answer!
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I also think that in some cases non-answers are valid, especially if there really isn't an answer!
April 21, 2009 05:08 PM
I'm not entirely certain the info doesn't exist.
There are lots of examples of things where companies would like to keep their info to themselves, but would love to know other people's info. This situation sometimes gets resolved by them telling an independent company like a consulting firm their numbers, so they can see other people's numbers in return. That could be anonymised and aggregated data like in the ABI/PwC report, or detailed info like in the Ad Age Report.
You are right that the Ad Age report is now dated, But it wasn't dated when it was published! And there's no reason why a similar report couldn't be published today.
Such a report may not exist, but your argument does not prove it could not exist.
Report
There are lots of examples of things where companies would like to keep their info to themselves, but would love to know other people's info. This situation sometimes gets resolved by them telling an independent company like a consulting firm their numbers, so they can see other people's numbers in return. That could be anonymised and aggregated data like in the ABI/PwC report, or detailed info like in the Ad Age Report.
You are right that the Ad Age report is now dated, But it wasn't dated when it was published! And there's no reason why a similar report couldn't be published today.
Such a report may not exist, but your argument does not prove it could not exist.
April 21, 2009 06:48 PM
@philipy
Ad Age does consider itself the authority in this arena. A couple of questions: How do they accumulate their data? Does their data come directly from the company they are referencing? When was the data gathered?
I'm not knocking your answer, it's just that the data simply does not exist. Please though, prove me wrong! I'd love to be proved wrong on this one!!!
Report
Ad Age does consider itself the authority in this arena. A couple of questions: How do they accumulate their data? Does their data come directly from the company they are referencing? When was the data gathered?
I'm not knocking your answer, it's just that the data simply does not exist. Please though, prove me wrong! I'd love to be proved wrong on this one!!!
April 21, 2009 07:12 PM
@robbrown... You said Pepsico knows the info Jason wants. How does it know it? If they can find out, why can't others? And how can they know it if, as you say, "the data does not exist"?
The methodology for the Ad Age report is described a little on page 8. Not in great depth. It's a mixture of published info (from the companies themselves, their ad agencies, the media they're using etc) and estimates.
Anyway, I am not saying that data is perfect. Just exactly what I said, the considerations you gave don't prove that such data cannot exist.
Companies, and for that matter other orgs, have highly sensitive data that sometimes does get shared through the means I described.
Report
The methodology for the Ad Age report is described a little on page 8. Not in great depth. It's a mixture of published info (from the companies themselves, their ad agencies, the media they're using etc) and estimates.
Anyway, I am not saying that data is perfect. Just exactly what I said, the considerations you gave don't prove that such data cannot exist.
Companies, and for that matter other orgs, have highly sensitive data that sometimes does get shared through the means I described.
April 21, 2009 07:24 PM
How does Pepsico know? By guessing.
That's the best anyone can do in this arena.
Report
That's the best anyone can do in this arena.
April 21, 2009 04:36 PM
This data looks good, though little old. Has been seeing lot of online ads from Vonage, Dell, Verizon, Netflix, monster.com and Scottrade.
#1 InterActiveCorp owns Ticketmaster, Expedia, Ask.com, Citysearch, Match.com, Chemistry.com, Evite, LendingTree, Hotwire and Hotels.com, so it makes sense that it is #1 advertiser on the Internet.
For May 2005, The Top Ten Advertisers in Internet (according to Nielsen NetRatings)
# Advertiser Impressions
1 InterActiveCorp 3,120,962,000
2 Vonage Holdings Corp 2,916,792,000
3 LowerMyBills.com, Inc. 2,170,360,000
4 Dell Computer Corporation 2,111,319,000
5 Verizon Communications 2,046,221,000
6 Netflix, Inc. 1,914,033,000
7 SBC Communications 1,762,111,000
8 Monster Worldwide, Inc. 1,545,699,000
9 Apollo Group, Inc. 1,468,174,000
10 Scottrade, Inc. 1,463,286,000
Here is a top 50 list for April, 2005:
http://www.clickz.com/3507981
You can pay "Nielsen" to get the current data.
Though, the following are top 10 advertisers for 2008, this data does not include Internet or B-2-B Spending!!!
Top 10 advertisers spent a total of $15.5 billion in 2008 – 15% less than the year before. Not a single one of the top 10 advertisers spent more in 2008 vs. 2007. Procter & Gamble maintained its perch as the top advertiser this year, despite a 19% decline vs. 2007.
Detroit’s Big Three automakers held on to spots in the top 10, despite double-digit percentage slashes in their ad budgets. Cerberus Capital Management (Chrysler) and Ford Motor Co. cut advertising 31% and 29%, respectively. General Motors trimmed its advertising 15%. Foreign automakers Toyota and Honda each made the top 10, but they, too, slashed their ad spend 7% and 3%, respectively.
Source(s):
http://www.internetworldstats.com/top10.htm
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=8050
http://www.nielsen-online.com/press_fd.jsp?section=pr_netv&nav=3
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/tops-in-2008-top-advertisers-m...
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Proctor and Gamble is #1 by total advertising spend in that table, not for online spend.
It lists data of each of the top 100 advertisers and it's divided up by medium.
Even in Nielsen top 10 advertisers for 2008, the following data does not include Internet or B-2-B Spending
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/tops-in-2008-top-advertisers-most-popular-commercials/