By Dave Porter

(AXcess News) Reno - eMarketer reports that display ad results in Europe have been steadily declining and are now down 50%, though in citing ADTECH, the researcher gives no reason why and was mute on US display advertising results.

eMarketer reported Thursday that the average click-through rate from November 2004 through December 2008 fell from 0.33% to 0.19% in Europe, citing a study by ADTECH.

While display ad click-through rates declined by nearly 50% in four years in the European online display ad market, eMarketer gave no reason for the drop in rates.

Still, thanks to the recession, overall online display advertising rates have dropped sharply except for video and other rich media which are seeing higher prices.  But even though video is proving to be the champion in early 2009, cost barriers are holding ad buyers back.

So far in the United States, overall online search ad rates have been down marginally and are expected to remain below 2008 results.  But in the display ad market many of the major display ad networks are suffering, despite a sharp drop in prices.

Oddly enough, eMarketer never mentioned why display advertising click-through rates in Europe have declined.  While many tech marketing pundits cite the competitive nature of search advertising for its targeted result capabilities, I believe its more due to the Rembrandt Factor.

The Rembrandt Factor centers on display ad layout which has not changed much in the four years eMarketer says click-through rates have been on the decline.  Many of the US-based display ad networks are displaying dual ads from the same advertiser yet the message, or layout. is identical - and on the same page.  No effort has been made to take advantage of site traffic in which a visitor typically views multiple pages, especially where tracking and intelligence gathering capabilities are being used.

I believe that if advertisers want better results from their display ads they need to be not only more creative but varying in the message being displayed, sort of like the old Rapid Shave roadside signs which gave a clever message that lured travelers into reading each sign as they passed.  This tactic could be well improvised in the online display ad market of today, regardless of whether it was being served in the United States or Europe.

The old adage of 'a picture's worth a thousand words' is an absolute and thanks to the intelligence gathering capabilities ad networks have it staggers one's imagination to believe they haven't perfected a multi-display tactic for their display advertising accounts.

Grab-it-and-slap-it online appears to remain the focus of most networks, whether in the United States or abroad.  While in Europe, the online advertising market leans towards site representation, here in North America networks continue to reign superior to site representation, bundling a mass-audience approach of sheer bulk.

In defense of the US display ad networks, the average CPM rate has been dropping, giving search advertising a run for the money, despite the lower CTR being reported.

24/7 Real Media reports that click-through rates on display advertising continues to average between 0.2 to 0.5%, according to sources inside the company.

While other major US display ad networks are reporting lower rates and fewer advertisements, a move towards coaxing change in their marketing tactics is underway, according media intelligence provider, Cervella.  Sources inside Cervella say they are attempting to sway display ad networks into entering the content side of the web and establish partnerships with media sources willing to pay publishers to display headlines.

While many content publishers provide RSS desktop feeds, they've been historically reluctant to give away headline feeds, explained Cervella.  But thanks to the recession, some have shown an interest in buying traffic through display ad networks and look to promote headline feeds no different than a CPM-based banner campaign, the media intelligence agency said.  The problem is, the model doesn't work for small, single-source publishers.  According to Cervella, it takes a pool of them to make it work, but in that situation, where the traffic lands has been an issue with pride of authorship standing in the way.

Cervella, a maverick upstart in the online media intelligence arena, says "the market is ripe for change and huge advantages await those publishers who ban together to grab market share."  But the problem they face is stiff competition from more powerful online brands and the only way to combat it is to ban together to form independent syndicates and to use that combined content power wisely.

"There are solutions," says Cervella.