Yahoo! US company, the second biggest search engine in the world, will grab around 10% of the domestic online advertising market this year, believes Mihai Fanache, media director with MediaCafe, the agency selling advertising on the network of websites owned by Yahoo! to customers in Romania.
The domestic online advertising market was estimated to be worth around 5 million euros last year, and is expected to go beyond 7 million euros this year. MediaCafe expects revenues generated by ad sales on Yahoo! sites to go up by 500-600% this year compared with 2006.
"This is probably unnatural growth," states Fanache. According to him, 2006 was a year of testing for Yahoo! in Romania. Domestic customers initially showed reluctance in carrying out online ad campaigns through the US network. "Natural increases of up to 150% will probably follow in 2008 and we will be able to speak of a progress of Yahoo! sales in Romania at that moment," Fanache also said.
The Yahoo! network has approximately 5.5 million users in Romania, of whom 4.65 million are registered ones and can be targeted by a possible online advertising campaign.
According to MediaCafe data, Yahoo! Messenger instant messaging application has around 3.5 million users in Romania, while the number of people using the free Yahoo! e-mail service amounts to some 3.4 million. Last year, Yahoo! saw its user base surge in Romania by more than 160%.
"The average number of pages a Romanian Yahoo! user visits monthly stands at 441, which means 441 ads served per month for us, and we may thus outperform TV advertising," maintains MediaCafe official.
MediaCafe company was set up by Mihai Fanache at the middle of last year, and is mainly rivalled by MediaPro Interactiv, ARBOmedia, AdEvolution. The company also sells advertising space on other websites, including YouTube or Photobucket.
On the other hand, Google, which operates the biggest search engine in the world, could soon target the domestic market of small customers of online advertising that cannot afford to pay more than 2,000-3,000 euros for an online advertising campaign and that cannot be present on Yahoo! websites, Mihai Fanache told ZF.
Prices for a campaign in Romania through the Yahoo! network may start from 8,500 euros.
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