The top online advertisers are direct marketing companies driving traffic through display ads and efficiently converting them into customers. Here is a partial list of these top online advertisers ranked by impressions to date in 2009. I’ve included some of the names of the leaders within these companies because they don’t get the same attention as the big brands – but they should. I’m sure I missed some. Please add names of all the folks that should be getting credit for their fine work in the comments below.

These guys and their teams are extremely good at what they do and are collectively spending billions of dollars on online display ads.  The reason they are spending so much on display ads is that they have figured out how to make display ads outperform paid search.  Their display ads are more cost effective on an implied Cost per Click (CPC) basis and generate more volume than through paid search.  The services many of them offer are not heavily searched – which is true for many offerings – and necessitates more of an interrupt-driven approach. 

The most amazing thing is that they have achieved all of this with one hand tied behind their back.  Unlike on the paid search side, there is no common tool like Google Analytics to give them in-market visibility, A/B testing and make in-market changes to the ads.  When ads are in-market they only see the refers that come to their conversion sites, but have no visibility and no ability to correct what is happening on the pages on which their ads are embedded.

We are currently working with a handful of leading advertisers to change this.  Advertisers are using our OView Service to have full visibility into the entire conversion funnel across an unlimited number of ad placements.  They can then do in-market A/B tests, make in-market changes to the applications in the ad slots and track conversion funnels cross domains.  Numerous campaigns have already been run through OView with top portals and ad networks.  Advertisers have been able to look inside the black box for the first time and make adjustments that have led to significant increases in conversion rates.  We are interested in feedback from a larger set of advertisers and agencies. Please reach out to me or add your comments below.