Author: Nil Zeren Özdemir
Introduction
Online advertising has become an important source for businesses for promoting products and services and meeting consumers, as a result of the rapid development of information technologies and increase in the use of internet. Delivering targeted messages to consumers at the right time through the digital footprints that users leave on the internet, such as user history and likes, plays an important role in the increasing prevalence of online advertising. In addition, detailed user targeting by advertisers, the measurable nature of the efficiency obtained from advertising, and the ability to take many actions such as data collection and sales orientation render online advertising indispensable. On the other hand, online advertising, which is an important marketing component in bringing products and services to consumers, has created some changes in competitive inputs for market players as well. Accordingly, it is observed that the Competition Authority (the Authority) has recently focused on competition law practices in the online advertising market through conducting market inquiries and investigations against undertakings.
Investigations in the Online Advertising Market
Online advertisements can be displayed on various parts of the user screen at various times when users make search queries or visit the internet. Although they can be classified according to individual criteria, the most common types of online advertising are search-based advertising, display advertising and listing advertising. Search-based advertising corresponds to text ads that are listed by the search engine at the top of the search page (above the organic results) for the relevant search with the phrase "paid sponsored advertisement" in return for the search query made by users on search engines such as Google, Yandex and Bing, provided that advertisers are brand-bidding various keywords. Display advertising is the display of ads in text, in the image or video format on a publisher's website or app.
