A Really Bad Report About Yahoo's Display Ad Business

Digital marketing analytics firm eMarketer released a new report on the future of online display advertising, and the forecast for Yahoo is particularly bleak.

Though overall U.S. spending on digital display advertising is expected to grow by nearly 24% in 2014, eMarketer predicts that Yahoo's display business will grow by only 2.2% this year after it actually shrank in 2013.

Despite Marissa Mayer's big announcement in January that Yahoo would consolidate and rebrand its advertising products, some in the industry still believe the company's ad technology lags behind that of its peers, particularly when it comes to real-time bidding.

eMarketer's complete three-year projections for Yahoo and rivals like AOL, Facebook, Twitter, and Google can be seen here:

The other big take-home from eMarketer's report is that the forecaster, like the rest of the digital advertising industry, is bullish on video advertising, which commands more focused attention from users and higher prices from brands.

That's perhaps why eMarketer is predicting such big growth for Twitter, which has worked to synchronize its video ad products with television and recently hired YouTube executive Baljeet Singh to further improve its offerings.

The report also cited video as the main driver of growth for AOL, which purchased the video advertising platform Adap.tv in August.

In total, eMarketer expects U.S. video ad spending to jump by 41% in 2014 to $5.89 billion. Here's its complete projection:

Via: Forbes.