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Why the world needs branded expert networks
It's been a dramatic few weeks in the online advertising world. News Corp. bought the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118463978304868582.html. AOL bought Tacoda http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6198613.html. Adify announced that over 35 branded expert ad networks have launched in under six months http://www.adify.com/Pr7_30_07_35Networks.htm.
OK, so the Adify news wasn't in the same league as AOL or News Corp./Wall Street Journal. But interestingly, Adify and our offering were often mentioned in stories about these transactions. Is the world (at least the online advertising world) recognizing the need for branded expert advertising networks?
First - examine Tacoda. Tacoda offers better targeting within remnant inventory. AOL recognized that Ad.com sells a great deal of remnant inventory by broad (or not so broad) category and saw that higher rates could complement these sales with Tacoda. AOL has always been a direct marketing powerhouse and this fits their core competency. And AOL is offering brand advertisers premium position and integrated sponsorships throughout the AOL properties. AOL could aggregate more audience for those brand audiences by creating expert (i.e. an edited, selected, premium collection) ad networks where advertisers have the visibility and control they like with AOL premium and the reach Advertisers like with Ad.com and Tacoda.
Sramana Mitra, on SramanaMitra.com wrote a compelling analysis of the Wall Street Journal deal and followed up with an answer to the question - What Next, Wall Street Journal? http://sramanamitra.com/2007/07/31/murdoch-gets-dow-jones-now-what/ and her advice - leverage your compelling brand and ad sales prowess to create expert branded ad networks. This would enable the Wall Street Journal to bring more of the valuable audience their advertisers crave without sacrificing the control and visibility their advertisers demand.
The web is expanding. Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, captured this dynamic in his analysis of why it good to be quality content and build expert ad networks. http://venturebeat.com/2007/07/24/ad-networks-why-it%e2%80%99s-better-than-ever-to-be-a-targeted-content-site/. Advertisers want to reach their audiences in premium settings where the audience is engaged and the content is compelling. Media companies (and entrepreneurs) are recognizing the opportunity to leverage their editorial expertise and advertising relationships (and brands) to transform this expansion into an opportunity to build next generation networks - where content is not necessarily owned, but is high quality and attracting an audience. Adify is working with many media companies and entrepreneurs who are seizing this opportunity - and it's been exciting to see the deals that reinforce the role of branded expert networks in the next evolution of the Internet and advertising. What's the most exciting new branded expert network you've discovered?
Adify and Ad Servers
What’s the difference between Adify and an ad server? Adify offers a world-class ad server AND Adify has layered significant network management, advertising optimization and payments technology into our ad server. The difference is that without Adify, network builders would have to create or integrate those technologies to build, manage, and maximize a vertical ad network.
Initially, setting up a vertical ad network seems easy -- sign up a few publishers, get some advertisers, traffic some ads, and you’re off and running. But, like most things in the online advertising world, the reality is not quite that simple. The problems crop up from selling advertising on sites you do not control and ensuring advertisers and publishers each have control over their destiny.
First, take the challenge of signing up publishers. Some networks start with "owned and operated" sites, which the network controls completely. However, the benefit of an expert vertical ad network is delivering advertising to the sites where the audience actually is– not just on the properties you control.
Consider the complexity of your relationship with these independent publishers that you are now inviting to your network. What types of sites will you accept into your network? How will you review them? Adify has an interface that allows you to do just this. What content standards must they adhere to? Adify enables you to publish the requirements for your network. Who will review their content to ensure it’s compliant with your standards, and how often will that happen? How will you split your advertising revenues with the sites and ensure they’re paid on a timely basis -- even if your advertisers don’t pay their bills on time? Adify calculates all the payments and is an outsourced payments processor.
Next, consider selling advertising. In a world with "promiscuous" sites that sample every ad network out there, what will keep the sites sticky to your network while you’re busy launching it? Adify Media sells advertising across all networks powered by Adify who want it. What ads will run while you’re waiting for your sales team to bring in some campaigns? Adify Media, again. How will you promote the sites in your network? An Adify Network Storefront Widget on your homepage can do this. How will you publicize your network and attract new publishers and advertisers. Adify’s Featured Networks (link) and Adify marketing services can help.
Finally, as you entice advertisers to buy on your network, you will need to traffic their ads onto the sites in your network. How do you distribute and optimize a campaign across an arbitrary collection of sites that might change over time and which may have different commission structures and contractual agreements with your network? Adify has an interface just for that – you can use it, or you can have Adify do the trafficking for you. As your network evolves, how much inventory will be available for the new campaigns as you bring them on? Adify provides analysis for inventory planning and management. Will you be able to traffic and optimize Flash, Pointroll, and other innovative formats that advertisers demand these days? Adify does.
Adify focuses solely on enabling successful expert vertical ad networks, so we have faced all these challenges time and time again, and we are continuously refining our processes and product to help network operators leap over these startup hurdles and focus on the business and marketing challenges of scaling their networks. In particular, in our product management team, we are hard at work at improving our tools to enable network operators around the globe define a new ad network, add sites to it, and traffic complicated insertion orders in minutes.
Adify has a world-class ad server and considerable network building technology on top of it. Adify’s platform infrastructure and integrated services allow literally anyone with a vision for building and managing an ad network to do so from their desktops, empowering experts at small and large companies alike. Our team has successfully launched 35+ networks to date and through that we’ve collected the hard-won experience to deliver the products and services that enable you to extract the greatest value from bringing together advertisers and their desired audience through an expert vertical ad network.
Media Planning Matters
TiVo announced this week that the most popular TiVo Stop|Watched advertisements were from Cort Furniture Rental, Domincan Republic Travel Bureau and Bowflex (http://www.businessweek.com/brandnewday/). According to BusinessWeek, these ads were very clearly selling a product and often with an 800 number as well. And the reason they succeeded was they were placed exactly with the content that attracted their audience. Media planning and campaign message were perfectly aligned to get results.
Adify sees the same trend as TiVo playing out on our expert vertical ad networks – ads that are built for a specific audience and placed on a vertical ad network that specifically caters to that audience easily outperform industry averages.
For example, one advertiser is running a specialty dog food campaign on a vertical ad network for passionate dog lovers, breeders and their vets. The creative speaks to the dog professional and the media planning leveraged the expertise of one of Adify’s Network Builders – a dog expert. The CTR is more than 3x the industry average. Another advertiser is running a more generic campaign that they placed in a custom-aggregated back to school channel that leverages multiple Adify networks. That campaign is performing because of the expert vertical ad networks – it would soar with creative that matched the audience.
Research announced this week challenged the focus on clicks and emphasized that brand advertisers need to measure the advertisement's effectiveness by measuring the impression it made on the viewer. Andrew Shrock captures this discussion on Technology Review. For an advertisement to make an impression - it must clearly have a compelling message for the audience congregating on the media where it run.
The continued fragmentation of the audience presents a challenge to advertisers –advertisers (and their agencies) have to offer creative that speaks to narrower audience interests while buying media to access that specific audience. The ads don’t have to be dynamically generated – knowing and talking to your audience is key in a fragmented media universe. Fragmentation forces media companies and advertisers to take our game to the next level with compelling creative and innovative media planning since the days of the audience aggregating on 3 TV channels or 4-6 web sites are long past.
The Ad Network is the Answer for Entrepreneurs and Media Companies
Google buys Doubleclick. Yahoo! buys Right Media and Blue Lithium. Microsoft buys adECN. AOL buys Advertising.com and Tacoda. What do all these acquisitions have in common? All four of these online “giants” have realized that to serve the needs of advertisers, they must reach beyond their premium sites and bring advertising to the audience wherever that audience is on the web. Adify’s customers who are building expert Vertical Ad Networks recognize the opportunity in the continued fragmentation of the online audience. In fact, Adify’s Network Builder customers are bringing together the most elusive audiences on the web – the audience passionate about specific topics who seek out experts and communities on those topics and spend less time on broad sites.
On September 17, AOL announced Platform A – a consolidation of its advertising ventures into one company that would dominate AOL and move AOL’s headquarters and focus to New York City. AOL recognizes that while advertisers and agencies are targeting more dollars online for both brand and performance campaigns, and so AOL (as well as Google and Yahoo) are offering consolidated planning and buying across premium and performance networks. Their claim is that they can bring your message to virtually every online consumer – broad reach.
Advertisers want reach, but they also want targeting. And the best target is the audience of thought-leaders upon who the mass market rely. Adify calls this the elusive audience. Media companies and entrepreneurs realize the power of bringing the elusive audience to the advertiser and are building expert vertical ad networks that leverage their understanding of specific topics and communities. While the sites in these networks may participate in remnant networks to make incremental revenue, their expert vertical ad network delivers higher rates for premium placement and quality brand advertisers that are relevant to their viewers.
Every media company needs to offer advertisers something unique and strategic based on understanding of their audiences and the flexibility of their platform. Adify is enabling many entrepreneurs and media companies to leverage these assets and create compelling, viable businesses bringing advertisers to the elusive audience.
The possibilities for vertical ad networks are limited only by the granularity of audiences advertisers want to target and the prevailing trend is to prepare campaigns that target very unique audiences to maximize brand impact. The network is the past and the future for media companies – AOL has realized that the era of walled gardens is long past and acquired it
Are you ready for AdTech: New York?
Next week, at the Hilton hotel in Manhattan, the online ad world will
converge to scope out what's new, hot and creative at Ad Tech: New York.
There will be insightful speakers and colorful exhibits. Just in case
your bags aren't packed, here's a quick check list to make sure you are
Ready for Ad Tech:
- Break in your shoes - the show is big and there's lots of walking to be done
- Grab some business cards - less nerdy than beaming your contact info at someone
- Pack some Tylenol and Advil - headaches and backaches are common
- Read through the online program - create your own conference schedule
- Make an exhibit map - who do you most want to see?
- Set a meeting place - where real world friends can find you
- Create a Facebook Group for your new adTech friends
- Twitter about the different panels and exhibitor booths
- Check the schedule for ice cream and beer - you never know...
- Test your luck at Adify's Wheel of Chance - entry to America's Hall
(Shameless plug) - Over 20 networks powered by Adify are on display at
the Adify entertainment center and many of them have sponsored cool
prizes like Margarita Makers, Nintendo Wii with SIMS PETS, airline
tickets and more. You cannot win if you don't play. Just like you
cannot reach your passionate, niche audiences without quality, vertical
ad networks. Are you ready to Adify?
A consumer's perspective - sports fan
In the early part of this decade life for Publishers and Advertisers was fairly simple and lucrative. Large Publishers commanded the lion’s share of the internet audience with their content and Advertisers knew exactly where they needed to go to get the maximum yield for their online advertising spend. Life was good. However, as the internet continued it’s exponential growth not only in terms of volume of users but also in terms of the number of sites with specialized content, large Publishers found themselves competing for Advertisers against independent long-tail sites and large Advertisers struggled to reach the maximum number of relevant internet audiences for their products and services.
To dissect this further, let’s take a look at my favorite subject - Sports. I would also say that I think I am pretty representative of a typical sports fan in the US. In the early part of this decade, ESPN.com was perhaps one of a handful of sites that had all your sporting news and updates. Anything from scores, statistics, player trades, and news were all available primarily on ESPN.com. I personally spent about 70% of my internet browsing time on ESPN.com in the early part of the decade – and probably close to 100% of my sports-netting was on ESPN.com. If an Advertiser such as Nike or Adidas wanted to reach a mass number of sports enthusiasts, like myself, ESPN.com was the place to advertise. However, as the Internet boom continued, two things happened:
- The creation of specialized sporting sites. Sites with dedicated content to a particular subject matter or sports team started to emerge. Eg. chicagobulls.com, Yankees.com, lakers.com, thewolverine.com, etc.
- The creation of independent sporting blogs. All of a sudden fans, analysts, and even athletes themselves had an outlet into the sporting world where their opinions were now desirable content.
Where I was spending 100% of my sports-netting time on ESPN.com back in 2002, that percentage is now probably more like 10%. For my college football news I go to thewolverine.com and mgoblog.com. For tennis news I go to atp.com. For news on trade rumors for my favorite baseball team I go to prosportsdaily.com. The availability of specialized sporting content so readily available has significantly shifted my “eyeballs” from ESPN.com to multiple sites across the web. In 2002 if Nike or Adidas wanted to advertise to the typical sports fan like myself, all they had to do was place their ads on ESPN.com. In 2007 and forward if they want my attention, they need to figure out how to advertise on all 20+ sporting sites I visit and spend equal amount of time on during a week. So this begs the question – How does a Nike or Adidas effectively get me to maximize my viewership of their ads while also maximizing their ad performance?
The answer is simple – Vertical Ad Networks. Vertical Ad Networks provide the most optimal solution for Advertisers in today’s Internet to reach the masses of targeted and relevant audiences they need to reach. Using the example above, besides continuing to advertise on ESPN.com, Nike or Adidas can work with a traditional Ad Network and likely get the largest number of eyeballs on their ads. However, what percent of these eyeballs will actually be relevant or convert for their products across a traditional Ad Network? It’s either low or unknown. Will placing an Ad for Nike apparel on a site dedicated for babies or Harley enthusiasts optimize their ad spend? Absolutely not. With a Vertical Ad Network, Nike or Adidas have the ability to access highly relevant sporting audiences across long-tail sites. In addition to advertising on ESPN.com, Nike and Adidas can now target sporting Ad Networks like Yardbarker or Sports Syndicator that are large communities of sporting sites and continue to get the biggest bang for their advertising spend.
So, while the scope of the Internet is anything buy simple, thanks to technology and innovation, life for Advertisers on the internet can still continue to be good, simple and lucrative.
Posted on December 18, 2007 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Problems and Possibilities in 2008
US media companies are starting 2008 facing a US advertising slow-down and a writer’s strike crippling television – a scary start to the year. In 2008, more people are spending more time online on many more sites than ever before. To reach those consumers and to help those consumers find more relevant content, vertical ad/content networks will proliferate. In fact, specialty vertical ad networks have the possibility of being the sort of compelling, creative, low risk value ad for media companies to offer their advertisers – a bright spot in a dismal landscape.
The highlights of 2007 included the rise and criticism of Facebook and the continued expansion of Web 2.0/conversational marketing. In addition, the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market rippled across all industries resulting in this week’s acquisition of Countrywide (the nation’s 4th largest online advertiser) by Bank of America. As 2008 starts, we’re faced with the US screenwriter’s strike, the most expensive US presidential campaign in history, and the upcoming Beijing Olympics – three seminal events in US online advertising which still comprises the majority of online advertising spending.
Harris Interactive estimates that 79% of US adults use the Internet resulting in 178 million adult US Internet users. In Europe, there are 169 million adult internet users in Western Europe (Data is from the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) "Mediascope Europe Study 2007," managed by SPA and conducted by Synovate).
This widespread use of the Internet creates new opportunities and challenges for advertisers and the folks who sell to them (agencies and media companies). Consumers increasingly spend more and more of their time outside the top 20 domains that are the easiest for advertisers to buy and media companies to sell.
Advertisers like the visibility, metrics and rapid improvement possible with online advertising and all signals are that online advertising will continue to grow in 2008 and take spend away from more traditional media. Piper Jaffray released an estimate last week of 20% growth in digital advertising in 2008 on top of a $16B 2007. eMarketer estimated that 2007 online advertising was $21B, equal to 7.4% of all media spending with expected growth to 9.3% of total media spending and $27.5B in 2008 (see Online Advertising on a Rocket Ride).
Although most advertisers are embracing online advertising, the Advertisers don’t like the lack of security around what content will be next to their advertising or the difficulties in finding their customers online. Advertisers have confidence that if they buy advertising directly on a site, they will know the quality of the content and control their placement on the site. However, there just isn’t enough traffic staying on the largest sites as Internet users visit more and more sites with content highly specialized to their interests.
This combination of trends – increased Internet use, more web sites visited, and increasing advertising budgets - raises the inevitable question – “where will that digital advertising budget be spent?”. It is widely agreed that 50% of advertisers’ online advertising budgets will be spent on search and contextual advertising, predominantly of text. That leaves $13.5B or (30% growth) in advertising to be spent with growing interest from brand versus direct response advertising.
Where will that extra 30% be spent? Here are several things to think about:
- Premium sites cannot raise prices 30% nor is their traffic growing at 30%, so alone, they cannot capture this new share.
- Performance ad networks – networks that monetize unsold/remnant ad space mostly on larger sites on a performance basis either from clicks or actions – often with the same users and same sites in their networks . Also, they do not offer the visibility or control required by brand advertisers. Regardless, those networks will continue to get a portion of the spend to increase reach and lower effective CPM.
- Behavioral networks offer advertisers more control over the audience who will see the message – increasing the accuracy of the reach – but often the ads are placed on large sites and ad networks. Advertisers will increase their use of behavioral networks to target their customer across many sites.
Historically, major media companies have offered advertisers quality content selection and premium advertising placement. Given the various trends that we’ve discussed, how will major media companies keep pace with the growth of online advertising spending and increase (or even maintain) their value to advertisers? We think that when major media companies need to increase their reach many of them will use premium vertical ad networks selected by their editors and aligned with their online properties.
These networks will enable media companies to offer advertisers high quality content and premium placement with significant reach and engagement. Savvy entrepreneurs who understand valuable content segments will grow their reach and offer advertisers high quality, topical collections of sites where their brand will be embraced and where they can engage the audience. Compelling advertising on these networks is extremely effective for branding.
As we look into our crystal ball for 2008, we definitely think that 1) there will be more premium vertical ad networks and 2) those vertical ad networks will be key for brand advertisers and their agencies looking to engage consumers online.
Posted on January 15, 2008 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Adify IS IAB Ad Measurement Audited and Certified by IM Services Group
Last week, Adify was proud to announce that we achieved IAB Ad Measurement Auditing and Certification. This audit and certification were completed by IM Services Group, an auditor listed on the IAB web site. The IAB does not certify or audit any company, but does accept certification letters from third party auditors confirming that a company complies with the IAB's Ad Measurement Guideline. Our announcement was covered by MediaPost . This morning, MediaPost wrote a correction with the headline Adify Not IAB Certified. IAB’s own web site refutes that claim.
The ensuring article focused on who performed the actual audit – and anyone familiar with the process would know it MUST be a third party, approved auditor as the IAB does not do audits. Adify stands by our release.
IAB Ad Measurement Auditing and Certification entails a third party auditor verifying the technology and processes of the advertising provider and ensuring that the ad measurements are reliable and accurate. Just as the Oscars are calculated by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, IAB Ad Measurement Auditing and Certification is performed by third party auditors. Adify used IM Services. Every one of the fourteen companies who have completed this process used a third party auditor and everyone of us can claim to have completed IAB Ad Measurement Auditing and Certification. Adify is proud to be one of them.
Einstein and Online Advertising Measurement
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." – Albert Einstein
Einstein kept that statement over his desk in his office at Princeton and the relevance to today’s situation in online brand advertising is incredible.
At iMedia's Brand Summit in early February, the Brand representatives were abuzz with the results of a comScore, Starcom and Tacoda sponsored study about the characteristics of consumers who click on advertisements that showed that only 6% of the online population accounts for 50% of the display ad clicks. And more impactful, those users are mostly lower household income (less than $40,000 annually) and spend up to four times more time online than non-clickers – often frequenting auctions, gambling and career services sites. comScore points out in their release that this is a very different traffic pattern than non-clickers.
The attendees at iMedia were clear that this presented a significant issue for measuring interactive media campaigns – the click through rate may represent a completely off-target audience for brand campaigns. In fact, Starcom commented that there is no correlation between clicks and brand metrics – and there was no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and volume of clicks.
So, what does a brand measure? Often the answer is engagement – with no industry standard measurement. Some people argue that engagement is a factor of time – how long a consumer saw the ad. Some recommend that panel based brand impact surveys are the thing. Others recommend in-campaign surveys. Perhaps the best answer is - "I know engagement when I have engagement."
Prior studies by MediaVest show that consumers are more favorable towards brands they encounter on smaller, niche sites closely aligned with their interests. It appears that engagement requires reach, frequency and placement online not unlike the offline media environment – but online there are many more choices and smaller segments to reach.
As for engagement – consumers want to be heard and brands want to build loyalty. Is this one of those intangibles that counts but cannot be counted? How do you want to measure engagement?
Vertical Ad Networks and Ad Exchanges
With new vertical ad networks launching (almost) daily and confusion about the role of Vertical Ad Networks, Performance Ad Networks and Exchanges, Adotas published Adify's analysis and analogy to help advertisers and agencies create a balanced, high return portfolio for their online advertising spending.
Over the last twelve months, there’s been a lot of attention on a new category in the online advertising ecosystem – the ad exchange. Acquisitions by Microsoft (ADECN) and Yahoo! (Right Media) and new offerings from Doubleclick reinforce that there is a real role for ad exchanges. It is a mistake to overstate this role, especially in reference to other parts of the advertising ecosystem. Historical analogy demonstrates exactly what the strengths and weaknesses of exchanges will be – can drive prices lower but require very knowledgeable buyers staying informed about all the factors influencing “asset” value. Vertical Ad Networks seem to be launching daily and the reason is that a quality vertical ad network is like buying into a mutual fund, rather than directly on an exchange. The vertical ad network builder is the mutual fund manager and drives value for themselves and their advertisers by tracking all the details and complexity in managing the publishers to deliver a high performing publishing community that efficiently and expertly reaches your target audience.
The United States economy has fluid capital markets facilitated by multiple exchanges – NYSE, NASDAQ, Chicago Mercantile and more. Individual investors are welcome to purchase equities (and options) on these exchanges through their licensed brokers. Yet the majority of individual investors, holding investments in their 401Ks, IRAs and brokerage accounts, have better risk-adjusted return from mutual funds – leading to a proliferation of mutual funds to address every segment and risk profile investors might have.
When an advertiser wants to maximize the return of their advertising investment, they need their Agency Media Planners & Buyers to create a balanced portfolio mixing direct investment in large on-target sites + reach to engaged, targeted audiences through vertical ad networks + broad reach from low cost remnant networks. The share of voice and audience engagement is highest on the premium, topically relevant sites of Vertical Ad Networks while the reach is highest through direct investments and remnant networks. This is the appropriate balance for high return online brand advertising campaigns where audience engagement is critical.
For example, if a major car manufacturer wants to reach safety-conscious Moms with a campaign about their minivan’s safety ratings and features, they might buy on a major news portal – and access a portion of the 5.5M unique visitors that reach that portal. If they added a targeted, premium vertical ad network for Moms to that campaign, they’d add another 4M unique visitors – for an unduplicated reach of 8M unique visitors a month. Already, the premium network is adding more efficiency to the media buy. Then factor in that only a portion of the 5.5M unique visitors on the destination site are moms and they may be on many different pages of that site which dilutes that 5.5M into a much smaller number. But the 4M in the premium vertical ad network are on mom-related sites and are much less diluted. So, the probable value of that blended campaign is much higher than the campaign that only accesses the destination sites.
Traditional performance ad networks and newer behavioral networks add reach to a campaign, but the vast majority of their inventory is unsold inventory from the large destination sites – so this is an excellent complement to the destination buy in order to reach more of the 5.5M unique visitors on that destination site. That said, according to comScore, the duplication between performance and behavioral networks and networks powered by Adify is less than 5% of the sites and 10% of the impressions.
There are no better advertising mutual fund managers than the knowledgeable editors and entrepreneurs extending their reach through the creation of Vertical Ad Networks. Mark Elderkin, of the Gay Ad Network, is arguably one of, if not the, leading authority on reaching the online Gay and Lesbian audience. Martha Stewart’s taste and editorial prowess is legendary – why wouldn’t you want to leverage her to reach your audience? Robert Kadar in Health, The Guardian Editor-in-Chief in travel, Forbes Editor-in-Chief on Business – these experts and more are working for you doing the hard work of selecting, monitoring and optimizing performance of publishers in your advertising mutual fund – your vertical ad networks. When you evaluate these alternatives for increasing your reach, you must consider the editorial expertise as well as the numbers – quality counts if you want a strong return on your brand advertising dollar.
You rely on informed and well-incented experts for your financial portfolio. It’s no different with your advertising portfolios. Exchanges are potentially part of that equation for deploying your advertising investment dollars but the continued fragmentation of the Internet creates meaningful value for advertisers who leverage skilled, well-incented advertising mutual funds for every campaign. Those advertising mutual funds are the emerging category of vertical ad networks.
Monetization with Adify & Forbes
As membership in Adify-powered networks continues to grow, several bloggers are writing about their experience. In Monetization with Adify & Forbes, David Peralty of dailypixel describes the process of joining the Forbes Network, and the results it has brought him.
Peralty concludes "I definitely recommend signing up for Adify, and trying to get your blog into one or more of the networks they currently have partnering with them, as the revenues are far beyond what you can get from most other services since it is based on cost per thousand impressions (CPM) versus the cost per click (CPC) or cost per action (CPA) advertising we are used to."
Despite Macroeconomic Slowdown, IAB Report Shows Continued Growth in Internet Advertising
Internet advertising revenues in the United States rose 26% to $21.2 billion in 2007, compared with $16.9 in 2006, according to the recently-released 2007 Internet Advertising Revenue Report. The report, conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, marks the fifth consecutive year of explosive growth.
2007 was the first year in which Internet advertising revenue surpassed radio advertising ($19.8 billion) and cable television advertising ($20.9 billion) to become the third-highest grossing segment, after television distribution ($31.2 billion) and newspaper advertising ($48.6 billion).
Though industry revenue concentration remains high, the share of advertising revenue held by “long-tail” sites (those sites other than the top 50 portals) increased by 43%, from a share of 7.7% in 2006 to a share of 11.0% in 2007.
Online Marketing Budgets Holding Up in Economic Downturn
Despite a worsening US economy, the portion of marketing budgets devoted to online marketing has remained strong, according to a May 2008 study by The CMO Club. Seventy-one percent of chief marketing officers surveyed do not plan on cutting their overall marketing budget, while only 14 percent said they would. When asked to specify which portions of their budget they are least likely to cut, the CMOs named online marketing and search engine marketing.
Online advertising is perhaps more recession-resistant due to its higher levels of precision and accountability. When CMOs face increased pressure to show how their expenditures are driving revenues, they are likely to choose advertising solutions that are highly quantifiable. Similarly, they are likely to gravitate toward advertising strategies that provide a high level of transparency concerning where, when and how their brand message is appearing. Vertical ad networks, such as those that run on the Adify platform, provide an attractive combination of precision and transparency.
Advertisers' Bill of Rights
At Adify, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all advertisers are entitled to expect their advertising campaigns to adhere to a reasonable bill of rights detailed herein.
I. All publishers involved in any brand campaign shall be fully disclosed with honest reporting as to the proportion of delivery on each publisher.
II. Campaigns shall be optimized in real time to maximize the goals of the campaign.
III. Frequency controls shall be unlimited and shall extend across all sites in all networks leveraged by said campaign.
IV. Advertisers shall have a strong share of voice on individual publishers and across networks on which the campaign is active.
V. All publishers involved in any brand campaign shall create premium content and maintain well-designed, swift loading sites.
VI. All ad spaces included in any brand campaign shall be in the premium position promised to the advertiser.
VII. Reports shall be available in real-time with virtually unlimited customization of included data and particular view.
VIII. Reports shall be deemed reliable by trusted third party auditor and certifying authority.
IX. Networks shall be populated by premium, relevant sites selected and regularly reviewed by knowledgeable, independent experts.
X. Advertisers will pay swiftly for delivery achieved to recognize the contributions of niche publishers.
Publishers' Bill of Rights
At Adify, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all publishers are entitled to expect that the advertising they invite onto their sites adhere to a reasonable bill of rights detailed herein:
I. All advertising campaigns shall generate reasonable compensation as determined by the publisher for the quality of the content and audience, else can be rejected.
II. Reports shall be available in real-time with virtually unlimited customization of included data and particular view.
III. Reports shall be deemed reliable by trusted third party auditor and certifying authority.
IV. Advertising will be sold by experts who screen it for quality and appropriateness to audience.
V. All campaigns will be available for review and approval by publishers.
VI. Deployment of campaigns will not require ongoing technical investment and modification of sites.
VII. Advertising creative will load quickly and will enhance the user experience on the site.
VIII. Technical support will be readily available to assist with questions and deployment issues.
IX. Changes to terms and conditions, technical capabilities or business conditions will be communicated to publishers.
What Brand Advertisers can learn from the Presidential Hopefuls
As the pack of hopefuls is whittled down to two, a lot of virtual ink has been spilled over the presidential candidates’ online tactics, and who got the best ROI looking at dollars spent vs. dollars raised – but that’s not the number that matters on decision day, and brand advertisers should keep this in mind. Though your results may not be immediate or measurable, taking the time to build a relationship with your audience will ensure that when they take out their wallets to vote with their actions, they’ll choose your brand.
Revisiting the spending and donation numbers reported by the Washington Post in late March (Matthew Mosk, 3/29/08), and now knowing the outcome of the race between Obama and Clinton, it seems that Clinton’s stronger ROI did not translate to a successful overall campaign. If we think of the campaign contribution as the political equivalent of a click or an acquisition, Obama’s less favorable ROI may point to the effectiveness of branding and community-building online.
| Although Obama “gravitated towards performance-based ad buys” (Kate Kaye, ClickZ, 5/29/08), the imbalance between donations and money spent and the actual outcome at the polls demonstrates that it’s not only conversions that matter. In fact, clicking on an Obama ad doesn’t even lead to a donation solicitation, rather to an invitation to join his community, receive emails, or learn more.
Obama’s goal in his online campaign is to "build an online relationship" with his supporters (Washington Post, March 28, 2008), and it is – or was – likely the ultimate goal of all of the candidates to build and foster lasting relationships and communities that will serve them not only as donators, but as long-term brand advocates. Consumers want to feel like they like are more than just a transaction – less focus on the conversion and more careful branding can lead to genuine grassroots response, engagement, and endorsement.
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Adify Gives Publishers Predictive Insight Into Advertiser Campaigns’ Success
Today, we’ve announced a unique and sophisticated Inventory Forecasting module to empower vertical ad network builders to predict supply and demand across the premier publishers in their networks.
News details:
- New inventory management module helps vertical ad network builders adjust inventory availability and pricing based on supply and demand.
- Adify’s Inventory Forecasting module addresses the variability in inventory levels that occur with vertical ad networks – allowing Network Builders to best serve both the advertiser and publisher communities.
- Inventory Forecasting helps Network Builders evaluate the value of online inventory over periods of time by analyzing the number of impressions generated and advertiser demand for the inventory. The tool begins to analyze data within weeks of a Network’s launch and improves over time as vertical networks become more established because it relies on historical data to provide the most accurate forecasting results possible.
- Adify’s Inventory Forecasting has three primary components:
1) Ad Network Forecasting to identify trends such as gaps in supply and demand and adjust accordingly; with custom reports that forecast inventory based on ad size, location, and type
2) Site Forecasting to calculate how many impressions member websites are expected to deliver
3) Campaign Forecasting to more precisely predict how many impressions will be required - Adify’s Network Builders have unmatched technology on which to base inventory pricing decisions and adjusting advertising rate cards, increasing rates for inventory in high demand, and lowering rates for less attractive inventory.
Product screenshot:
Quote from Adify’s president Russ Fradin:
“Adify Network Builders pride themselves on the high quality inventory they offer advertisers looking to connect with their engaged, passionate audiences. Adify Inventory Management is like a crystal ball into the expected success of individual advertiser campaigns across a syndicated community of publishers. Our Network Builders now can accurately predict the need for online inventory, whether it is event-driven demand like the Super Bowl or flat retail-related inventory sales in the post holiday shopping season. By anticipating the supply and demand issues events such as these can cause, Inventory Forecasting helps network builders make educated decisions in terms of inventory supply, available website and campaign impressions and even ad rates.”
Background:
- Consumers are discovering a continuously growing array of niche websites for their online content needs and advertisers are augmenting their branding campaigns with vertical ad networks that drastically increase their reach into the long tail of the Web.
- Adify network builders deliver premium content to reach audiences that advertisers want to target efficiently and cost effectively.
- Inventory Forecasting strengthens Adify’s already comprehensive solutions that are being used by more than 120 leading ad networks.
Jupiter’s Prescription for Content Producer Success
Large portals such as Yahoo and AOL have continued their efforts to consolidate web traffic, as reported by Barry Parr, Lead Analyst with Jupiter Research, in his new report Living With Portals (July 3, 2008). While Google’s dominant search engine tends to send traffic to a wide variety of smaller sites, the portals are, in actuality, “portals to their own properties." Yahoo.com, for example, sends 67% of its traffic to Yahoo-owned sites.
This phenomenon tends to squeeze other media companies and content producers who are vying for web traffic. Large portals are thus a strategic threat to content producers, and are projected by Parr to continue to “squeeze the air out of the market”.
To thrive in such an environment, Parr recommends several strategies for content producers:
• Form vertical ad networks to improve advertising yields and to build portal-style advantages on a smaller scale.
• Form content distribution alliances with smaller content producers.
• Work toward a platform strategy, with open interfaces for content.
• Build search engine optimization best practices into all aspects of the organization.
• Seek syndication deals with portals, but simultaneously build traffic on owned and affiliated properties.
Content producers who implement Parr’s recommendations would benefit by working with Adify, the leading provider of white-label vertical ad network technology and services. Examples of networks who have already built vertical ad networks on the Adify platform can be found here.
Google AdWords Sued over Low-Quality Inventory
A class-action lawsuit is in the works against Google over the issue of inventory quality. Attorney Hal Levitte recently filed a federal lawsuit in California, claiming that 16.3% of the clicks driven by a recent AdWords campaign to promote his law firm were from parked domains and 404 error pages. According to the lawsuit documents, none of these clicks resulted in conversions.
The claim is essentially that Google did not make it clear to Levitte that his firm’s ads would be appearing on low-quality pages, and provided no easily-accessible means of opting out of appearance on such pages. Because this same situation has applied to many AdWords advertisers, Levitte is seeking class-action status for the suit.
The predicament in which Levitte and other AdWords advertisers find themselves can be summarized as “reach without quality”. The vast size of Google’s Content Network ensures that an AdWords advertiser can generate high volumes of impressions very quickly. But a high proportion of these impressions are likely to be on low-quality inventory, leading to low conversion rates and negative perceptions of one’s brand. Worse still, it is difficult to ascertain which impressions were of low quality, due to a lack of network transparency.
While Google recently created a feature to block parked domains from one’s campaigns, the feature is buried within Google’s interface and difficult to access. And this feature doesn’t solve the problem of transparency: even when this feature is used, one’s ads may still appear on low-quality sites and blogs without one’s knowledge.
This predicament can be resolved through the use of vertical ad networks, which provide “reach with quality”. Examples of vertical ad networks can be found in Adify’s networks list.