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Much of this year's Marketing Services Guides indicates an industry in rude health, with search especially bullish, reflected by the growing number of entries in the sector. Last year saw much consolidation and change. For example, the traditional ad network model is still being challenged by the growth of real-time bidding and media agencies investing in demand-side platforms. But networks are honing their skills, and many have made acquisitions in their bid to become third-party ad specialists around video, content or data management niches.

In the mobile sector, too, consolidation has seen larger advertising agencies buying independent mobile specialists and bolstering their mobile teams, as clients realise the growing importance of the channel. Also at the forefront of everyone's agenda is the growing momentum of social media. Over the past year, many agencies have made senior-level appointments in this area, underlining the move towards sustained investment rather than mere lip service. Email agencies and analytics providers are citing social media as one of the biggest opportunities for growth over the coming year. Many are launching products and tools to track success across all channels, responding to clients' clamour for social media measurement. The recognition that social media needs to be integrated with other digital marketing disciplines is what drives many service providers this year.

Another effect this diversification of channels has is the urgent quest to measure attribution and ROI across all of them more effectively. Every sector in this guide cites this as a key priority, so expect to see more action on this front throughout the year ahead. How the guide is compiled

HOW THE GUIDE IS COMPILED

As with previous editions, the sixth nma Marketing Services Guide lists specialists in the fields of affiliate marketing, online ad networks, web analytics and email, mobile and search marketing. We asked agencies to select their main area of business from:

Ad networks Companies that resell ad inventory from a range of websites to other companies and agencies
Affiliate networks Companies that develop or run affiliate marketing campaigns and related services
Analytics providers Specialists in helping companies measure their webmarketing
Email agencies Companies that develop or run email campaigns and related services
Mobile agencies Companies that develop or run mobile campaigns and related services
Search agencies Companies that develop search marketing campaigns, both natural and paid, and related services

For the third year running we've based many of the financial rankings on the income, or gross profit, that companies earn from their given specialism — defined explicitly as a company's turnover minus associated third-party (bought-in) costs. This decision was made in 2009 to bring the Marketing Services Guide into line with sister publication the nma Top 100 Interactive Agencies guide, as well as other tables published by Centaur and other publishing groups. We also believe that, as the industry matures, for certain sectors turnover is becoming less indicative of what a company earns for its expertise.

The search sector continues to respond particularly well to this requirement, with nearly all the leading names making the effort to supply the figures requested. And as some search agencies move to a performance model where they buy media at their own risk, we believe it's even more evident that gross profit is the best basis for comparison, particularly for a table that includes paid and natural search specialists.

However, the picture is still complicated for businesses that buy or sell media in volume. The ad networks that sell inventory on behalf of publishing clients have healthy sales numbers, but they also have to pay commission to these publishers, plus other third-party costs such as ad serving. They argue their turnover from sales is the most valuable yardstick to judge them by. Likewise affiliate networks' turnover is made up of what they charge clients for agreed actions. Each of these sales incurs a cost, which is what the network pays its affiliates. While the argument is finely balanced, for the purposes of this year's guide we accept that turnover is still a useful guide to the size of an ad network or an affiliate network, but will keep the situation under review.

Many companies owned by international groups are unable to disclose any financial information — as with previous years, the high proportion of US-owned analytics providers means this table is ranked alphabetically.

In an effort to add an additional layer of information and transparency to the guide, this year we've included accounts filed with Companies House for those agencies that haven't provided figures and aren't bound by US legislation. We haven't ranked on these, though.

As the Marketing Services Guide goes from strength to strength, we hope companies will continue to support new media age in our attempt to provide readers with a dependable and meaningful guide to the most successful specialists in their chosen field.

new media age would like to thank Green Square Partners, the marketing communications business advisory and M&A practice, for advice in compiling this guide. All editorial decisions are our own.