Market research firm eMarketer has lowered its revenue estimate for Facebook due to “underperformance” so far in 2012 and “questions about the effectiveness of some of the site’s ad products.”

The firm previously pegged Facebook’s 2012 revenues at $5 billion, but is now lowering that estimate to $4.23 billion — still about 34 percent higher than 2011 revenue.

Emarketer says Facebook ad revenue will continue to grow, just not at the rate that it has in the past. The firm estimates Facebook’s ad revenue will grow to $5.48 billion next year and $6.81 billion in 2014.

Facebook has suffered a rocky road on the business side of things since going public earlier this year. Its stock is currently trading at about half of the opening day price, and there’s been a very public and long-running debate about the effectiveness of Facebook’s ads.

In its latest quarterly earnings call, Facebook reported that advertising accounts for about 84 percent of its total revenue.

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues

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