Rubicon has released its Q4 report for the online display market. The headline grabber for the last quarter was the rise in CPM ad rates by 34% across twenty of the top most trafficked sites. The report contains some excellent market overview - and highlights the trends that are likely to shape online display in 2010.

Some of Rubicon’s predictions for the year ahead include the following:

- Increased number of audience-based buys
- A buy-side push for greater control and transparency
- Properly segmented and targeted online ad inventory
- Ongoing evolution in the ad network market
- Increased marketing spend on online video advertising with new ad formats and standardization of metrics and measurement.

One of the big areas of growth in 2009 has been audience-based buying by agencies and advertisers. The report highlights that CPM rates in an audience-based campaign are up to four times higher than a typical contextual buy, and that this buying trend is likely to gain further momentum in 2010:

This higher yield for audience-based buys isn’t just a theory. In Q4, we saw a sizeable return of brand dollars and increased interest in retargeting, remarketing and audience-targeted buys, all at significantly higher rates than standard site buys. CPMs for audience-targeted campaigns in the REVV Marketplace were on average 4X higher than typical content-based site buys, and contributed significantly to an overall increase in digital ad revenue spend at the end of the year.

Generalist ad networks without targeting and optimisation technology are likely to struggle in 2010. Vertical ad networks which excel at providing specific audiences in attractive niches will prosper and continue to attract online media spend from advertisers and agencies:

Vertical ad networks will flourish: Maureen Little, VP of Business Development at Turn also sees a lot of growth ahead for vertical ad networks. “Vertical and data-driven networks will live on for a pretty long time, especially those with exclusive user data and high-end publishers. But the vanilla or standard
networks are going to be shaken out.”

The Rubicon Project's Q4 Market Report can be downloaded in full from here.