Online ad prices were starting to erode even before the markets got whacked by the financial crisis. PubMatic’s AdPrice Index for the third quarter reveals that online ad prices declined 27% compared with the same period in 2007. Publishers of all sizes are feeling the pinch of the economic slowdown, PubMatic said. Small sites continue to command better pricing for eCPMs, now at 61 cents on average in the third quarter, but these price levels have been declining quarter to quarter in 2008. eCPMs for larger sites held steady in the third quarter but at a lower pricing base of of 18 cents. One key finding: social networks continue to have weak eCPMs (20 cents), driving the segment to explore new marketing methods to leverage billions of pageviews. Another nugget: technology sites have held steady the past few quarters with eCPMs of 50 cents.
