Blog Posts by Author: Courtland Smith
Online Display Ad Market Rebounds, According to comScore
May 13th 2010, comScore reported its findings on Q1 2010 data in the US online display advertising market. Total ad impressions, excluding video ads and house ads, tallied in at 1.09 trillion. This represents a 15% increase in ad impressions over Q1 2009.
Aligning Publisher and Agency Incentives
We’ve recently been introduced to a promising hybrid model used to sell online inventory that is part CPM and part CPC. Finding a pricing mechanism that encourages good behavior and aligns publisher and agency incentives has been a big challenge for our industry. Publishers tend to favor CPM pricing since what they will be paid for their online inventory is fairly predictable, and the risk for non-performance is placed on the agency. Agencies tend to favor CPC or CPA pricing since they are only paying for performance, and the risk of non-performance is placed on the publisher.
Custom Campaigns and Publisher Innovation
A lot of people complain that there is a glut of online inventory, but one of the major upsides to this is that abundant supply drives supply side innovation. A great example of this is a very unusual custom campaign that Martha’s Circle sold to eBay. In this campaign, eBay gave Martha bloggers gift cards to eBay, and the bloggers write about their experience. Readers of the blogs participating in this advertising campaign are instantly engaged with the brand via the written content, and the brand’s display advertising on the blogs has higher impact as well. The best part about it is that readers of these blogs value the bloggers opinion, and actually want to hear about their experience. The blogger connects the reader to the brand in a meaningful way. It is also worth mentioning that this campaign adheres to the new FCC ruling requiring disclosure that eBay is a paid advertiser.
Release 4.3 is here
We’re happy to announce Release 4.3 of the Adify platform! The focus of this release is the many enhancements to the new campaign editor. Also included are a number of features to improve performance and convenience, and enhancements for users of behavioral targeting.
Here are some of the features that we rolled out with the release:
Are Vertical Ad Networks the New Portal?
A common misconception about vertical ad networks is that their closest relatives are horizontal ad networks. This misconception exists because of audience targeting advancements: You might ask, “How are vertical ad networks any different than a horizontal ad network that targets a desired audience?” The defining attributes of a vertical ad network are that it aggregates thematically related content and offers an audience in context. Peoples’ responses to advertising vary based on what type of online content they are engaging with. That means even if an advertiser reaches the right person on a horizontal ad network, the ad may not be reaching the audience at the right time. The right time to reach audiences is when they are engaging with relevant content that they like and trust.
Protecting Publisher Rates Starts with Educating Media Buyers
iMedia recently interviewed former Forbes.com CEO, Jim Spanfeller, following up on a piece he wrote for paidcontent.org on publishers’ counter-productive approach to pricing their “remnant” inventory. Spanfeller argued that the idea of remnant inventory is not only misguided and detrimental--but that remnant inventory doesn’t really exist. While Spanfeller’s stance supports our model here at Adify, which enables mid-tail and long-tail sites to sell their inventory at premium prices, we need to acknowledge that remnant inventory exists. Also, monetizing remnant inventory may not be disastrous as Spanfeller makes it out to be if publishers force the sellers of that inventory to be straightforward about the nature of those placements.
Hotchalk on the Rise
Hotchalk, one of Adify's first partners to build a vertical ad network, continues to expand its influence in the education vertical. According to a recent comScore release, out of the top 100 properties measured by comScore in September 2009, Hotchalk ranked number one in terms of largest percentage increase in unique visitors, with a 64% increase in unique visitors from August to September 2009.
Demand Side Ad Networks Offer Insight on Vertical Ad Networks
Demand side ad networks continue to be a hot topic in our industry. In general terms, a network can be vertical or horizontal, and demand side or supply side. A network that aggregates like content is vertical, whereas a network containing multiple categories is horizontal. A network run by buyers of online inventory is demand side, and a network run by sellers of online inventory is supply side.
Dennis Publishing Launches IT Focused Vertical Ad Network
Today Dennis announced Dennis IT Pro - Connect, a new vertical ad network powered by Adify which enables advertisers to target IT professionals across Dennis' network of strong IT sites. Read more from New Media Age.
Kill The CPM? Let’s Take a Closer Look…
Last week, Shelby Bonnie, the CEO of Whiskey Media, co-founder of CNET, and former IAB chairman, wrote an article calling for the demise of CPM pricing in online advertising, and was clear that CPA and CPC pricing have a role, but that there is something more for successful display advertising. Among the many insights in the article, was the age old adage, “you get what you pay for” and, by Shelby Bonnie’s estimation, if you place a media buy with CPM pricing, that means you are buying impressions…which may not be what you really want. In Adify’s experience, brand marketers want their creative to have impact with an engaged audience, and to build positive awareness of their brand. They want this because they know the lasting impact positive brand awareness ultimately has on sales. What they don’t want is their creative to appear on sites cluttered with ads, and with sub-par content.
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