Prices Falling for Online Ads - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

There is more bad news for digital advertising, which oh-so-many Web start-ups count on for revenue. The price advertisers are willing to pay for ad space online is down 27 percent this year, according to a PubMatic report released Wednesday.

“We’re definitely seeing a softening in the market due to the ongoing malaise in the offline economy,” said Rajeev Goel, president and co-founder of PubMatic, which helps publishers find space across ad networks.

PubMatic tracked the sale of display ads through ad networks on Web sites in 20 different topic areas. Ads on social networks fetched the smallest price per thousand eyeballs — 21 cents, down 22 percent from the second quarter. Ads on sports sites were next lowest, at 25 cents. Ad prices on entertainment sites saw the steepest drop, to 33 cents.

Ads on business and finance sites had relatively high prices, at 86 cents, but that was down 22 percent from the second quarter. Web sites about technology were the only category that didn’t see ad prices fall — they stayed flat at 57 cents per thousand pairs of eyeballs.