Google's Display Network - which comprises YouTube, Blogger, Gmail and about 2 million other sites - was recently compared to Facebook on a variety of advertising criteria by WordStream.
While researchers found that Facebook sees more pageviews per month than Google does ad impressions (1 trillion versus 180 billion), Google's networks have a far more expansive reach, (90 percent to 51 percent).
It was also discovered that the average clickthrough rate on a Google Display ad (0.4 percent) is almost 10 times higher than Facebook's (0.051 percent), which actually fell from 0.063 percent in 2009.
These findings emphasize the fact that Facebook has some work to do to make headway in the advertising department. Wall Street Cheat Sheet reports that Facebook only made $4 in ad revenue per active user in 2011, while Google saw $24 per user - six times better.
"So far, Facebook's advertising platform hasn't kept pace with the explosive growth of its social network, and it remains to be seen if CEO Mark Zuckerberg even wants to focus on advertising as a source of revenue. In his 2,500+ word letter to shareholders this month, he mentioned advertising just once," said Larry Kim, founder and CTO of WordStream.