What Numbers are Right?

February 29, 2008

I picked up a copy of the winter edition of Electronic Retailer Magazine and started looking at the social networking data that they provided. Imagine my confusion when I saw different numbers for US Social Networking AD Spending on two different pages.

Emarketer said that is expects that social network ad spending will rise to $2.7 billion in 2011. The growth by year was:

  • 2006 – $350 million
  • 2007 – $920 million
  • 2008 – $1.565 billion

In the same article MAGNA Global was predicting that social networking spending will exceed $1 billion by 2008.

  • 2006 – $276 million
  • 2007 – $685 million
  • 2008 – $1,020 billion

So who is right? In 2006 was the social network ad spending $276 million or $350 million? Last year was it $686 million or $920 million? How can two companies be so far apart on ad spending numbers?


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