"Year on year and quarter on quarter growth reflects substantial strength in mobile search due to ongoing improvement in ad formats and deliveries to better address how consumers use their mobile devices,? said Ruth Porat, chief financial officer at Alphabet Inc. and Google Inc., during the call.  

"YouTube revenue continues to grow at a significant rate, with growth driven primarily by video advertising across TrueView and Google Preferred,? she said. 

?Network revenue was $3.7 billion, up 4 percent year over year and up 2 percent sequentially, continuing to reflecting the significant growth by programmatic offset the traditional businesses."

Google?s parent company Alphabet Inc. reported that revenues totaled $18.7 billion for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, up 13 percent year over year. 

Alphabet said Google saw substantial growth in mobile search revenue. Other drivers included growth in YouTube and programmatic advertising. 

Advertising revenues totaled $16.8 billion, up 13 percent year over year and five percent from the previous quarter. 

However, Google continues to face monetization issues on mobile, with the aggregate cost-per-click declining 11 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period last year and 1 percent from the previous quarter.

Display advertising is an increasingly important area of focus in mobile advertising. 

Display ads now account for the biggest share of spend on mobile, replacing search. The growth is expected to continue in part because of the success of Facebook and other social media  platforms in attracting advertising dollars, according to a new report this week from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (see story). 

In this environment, display advertising is important to Google?s future, but the company is faltering here. 

According to IgnitionOne?s Q3 Digital Marketing Report, Google is losing significant display share to rival Facebook. Google display spend dropped 19 percent year-over-year, while Facebook?s increased by 40 percent. 

Google has an opportunity tor regain some of its lost share in display with its new Customer Match program, which enables marketers to target custom audiences via their customer email address databases for search ads, YouTube Trueview ads and native ads in Gmail. 

Facebook and Twitter have seen good success with similar offerings. This is the first time Google is giving advertisers a way to target ads against their own data. 

Google could also face a bigger threat on mobile search from Facebook in future.

The social media giant is looking for a bigger role in search with its launch yesterday of SearchFYI, which serves up real-time public posts related to search inquiries in addition to posts from friends. While there is not a monetization strategy yet, the company has already opened the door to the possibility. 

?Google's biggest mobile win during the third quarter was the announcement of its new Customer Match offering in late September,? said Jordan Cohen, chief marketing officer of Fluent. 

?While it was rolled out too late to materially impact its Q3 results it is guaranteed to be a hit with advertisers in Q4 and beyond,? he said. 

?The solution will enable Google to more effectively compete with Facebook in mobile advertising as it will enable highly accurate targeting of ads on mobile devices.?