But Global Warming is a Myth, Right Mr. President?

(From an AP report)

In Cedar Rapids, the engorged river flowed freely through downtown. At least 438 city blocks were under water, and in some neighborhoods the water was 8 feet high. Hundreds of cars were submerged, with only their antennas poking up through the water. Plastic toys bobbed in front of homes.

For decades, Cedar Rapids escaped any major, widespread flooding, even during the Midwest deluge of 1993, and many people had grown confident that rising water would pose no danger to their city. The flood this time didn't just break records; it shattered them.

The Cedar River was expected to crest Friday night at nearly 32 feet, an astonishing 12 feet higher than the old record, set in 1929.

Give: www.redcross.org

WOW!

Do we really have a presidential candidate who cannot use a computer? I understand that political figures often have most of the mundane things done for them, but Wow. To have never heard "You've Got Mail!" ? To not be trawling all the local newspaper sites in Arizona, or indeed across America -- for comments about onesself.

I don't view this as a disqualification for the Presidency. I simply view it as astounding.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

FRIDAY THE 13TH LIP SYNCH FRIDAY - SCARY POP THAT'LL MAKE YOU CRINGE

As longtime readers know, OLDMTA shifts its focus from deep journalistic purity to something a little lighter at the end of every week, because, frankly, traffic used to plunge on this blog on Fridays. So as an act of pure pandering, I resort to the lowest common denominator. Not gossip, not celeb photos, but UGC lip synchs of bad pop songs scrounged off YouTube.

To quote my friend Danny, "You gotta have shallow to have deep."

Enjoy this week's scary pop extravanganzzzzzza! I scrounge hard so you don't have to.

New Yahoo Logo?!?

According to Tech Crunch and Snap, Yahoo may be testing a new logo. It is pictured in this screen cap taken Thursday morning on Firefox.

Tech Crunch reports here on the sighting by Bob Sweat, a PM at Snap.

It weirded me out for a few minutes, given that I see the old logo about 300 times a day. But I kinda like it.



Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

BookShelf: Learn About a Lifestyle

I have been reading an interesting book about a thought provoking lifestyle, so I thought I would share. Entitled Leisureville and written by Andrew Blechman, the volume provides both a history and a set of sociological observations about America's retirement communities.

One of the places he focuses on will -- well, you will think I am making this up. Located about 90 minutes north of Orlando, FL is The Villages, a set of gated communities that will one day house 110,000 (!) people over 50. That's two Palo Altos of mature people all living inside some gates.



This is a community so big and action packed that this site has thousands of pages of info about the community and its goings on.

But population is not the only interesting thing about the place.The community travels mostly by golf cart, and most of the residents do the vast majority of their living within the gates. The golf carts alone are a sight to behold. There's an entire culture round pimping your cart. Check out this Flicker photo stream!

Many streets have piped music outside. On certain days there are community line dances in the public squares. The population is so large relative to the rest of the three counties (!) it lies in that The Villages residents have a strong degree of control over county government budgets, which the author says has negative effects on the school budgets, naturally.

There is, apparently, a happening pick up scene, and you may be surprised to learn that the rates of growth in venereal disease infection are among the highest for seniors. Online chat and dating are old hat for many Villagers. And no that isn't funny. It is fact. Though the photo below is a little funny. ;-)



I could go on and on, but you should read the book. And bear in mind that while the author disapproves of the idea of what he calls "age segregated" communities, clearly MILLIONS of older Americans do not. Any book like this is a point of view, rather than exposition.



So why am I writing about this in a digital marketing blog? Well, it really brought home to me how much of a bubble I live in -- a world where people generally eschew gated communities, plan their lives by PDA or cell phone, and know their Dopplr from their Revver from their FlyPapr.

And how as digital marketers it is very easy to become so obsessed with the mechanics of our litle corner of digital media that we forget to consider how it complements a full range of lifestyles. If indeed it DOES complement a full range of lifestyles.

And that people of all walks of life and all ages are increasingly living in ways traditionalists would find quite unusual. Quite unusual. Which should remind us all that in order to do digital marketing we need to DEEPLY understand the daily existences of the people we want to have invite our technologies into their lives.



Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper Thursdays: BONUS VINTAGE PAPER ON VIRAL

Thjis one is an oldie, but as with fine wine and bloggers, older isn't necessarily a bad thing. A Best Practices doc on Viral Marketing from Dr. David Saad of Clupedia.

Available here at TechRepublic (reg required) as well as on eMarketing Papers (reg required.)

Introducing...White Paper Thursdays!

True Confession: I am a white paper wh*re. This is a term usually associated with people in IT, simply because there are so many more whitepapers about IT issues than marketing topics.

But a wh*re is a wh*re is a wh*re, and I am one when it comes to white papers. I love info, and will stop at nothing to grab all I can. I currently have 7 gigs of them behind a firewall online, and more added everyday.

Did you know that St. Nicholas is the Patron Saint of (Reformed) Prostitutes? It's true. The story is that to save three women from a life of prostitution, he threw three bags of gold down their father's chimney.

Are you a marketing white paper wh*re? If you are, I want to help you get your fill. Oh, very unfortunate potential metaphor there. I mean, I want you to get your fix.

Because you, gentle reader, you are the oxygen of my week. And as a way of giving back, I will be offering a weekly post identifying a magical mystical whitepaper that is a download must. Not always the newest, but one I think you shouldn't miss.

It's the newest edition to the constantly growing OLDMTA editorial calendar. White Paper Thursdays.

Here is this week's:

A joint study between the IAB and Booz Allen on what marketing will look like in 2010 is available here. Get the key info in PPT form here.

My weekly gift to you. Nicholas. Nichols. I leave you to draw your own conclusions. Sadly I seem to have a matching midriff to Santa at the moment. ;-)

Puttin the Old Man in His Place

So, I don't mean to sound like Chris Schwarze at Catalyst:SF has performed the verbal equivalent of elder-battery on me in this post, but it is a good reminder for me and geezers like me that in order to attract new people to the digital space we need to treat them like...people...and not condemn a generation willynilly as lazy and incompetent.

Actually I don't consider myself a particularly bad offender on this front, but the point has merit for me just the same.

That being said, I am sure all of you who share my over 40 status will agree that the hallways were longer in our day, and that having IBM Selectrics instead of PCs made the process of producing memos and POVs more difficult. Of course we had amazing administrative assistants back then, too, but we can keep that part just between us.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Online Video and Cheap Video Editing Tools Mean...More Poltiical Ads!!!

Now no office is too small for a :30!

New UGC Contest from ABC/GMA

Those who know me know I like sweet. ABC's Good Morning America just launched a video contest that is delightfully on brand.

Entitled I say GMA and available here, the contest holds the promise of pure syrup schmaltz and I cannot wait! Here's some tease to make your teeth hurt...




All this is taking place on the iCaught.com subsite of ABC. What is iCaught? Glad you asked (from the site):

What is i-CAUGHT? Well - we all know there's a video revolution swirling around us all - 24/7. Ask yourself... how many times were you caught on surveillance video today? Did you - like more than 100,000 other people - upload a video onto the Internet? Did you go online like millions of others and watch a video?

We're ALL a part of this new video revolution.

But it's more than just entertainment. Every one of these videos has a story behind it. Who made it? What was going on behind the scenes? What came after it? And how much can we really believe what we see?

An awful lot of it is also news. The politician caught on an open mic. The policeman caught doing the heroic - or the opposite. The patrol on the streets of Baghdad. Or the moment when Mother Nature wreaks havoc on the ususpecting. We're watching - literally - as every single person with a video camera can gather news for all the rest of us.

We call this new television and Internet experience i-CAUGHT. Because that's how so many people feel these days. Everywhere you look - cameras - catching everything: breaking news... making headlines... turning unknowns into celebrities... turning others into laughing stocks...

And for all the world to see - in an instant. It's video at the speed of life.

Every week, i-CAUGHT brings you the real stories - reporting on the real people - behind the videos that millions of us watch and share everyday. .

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

aCerno: The Funnel Frontier

Those familiar with the team at Catalyst:SF know that our folks have worked to develop more effective marketing for a variety of ad networks and rep firms over the years -- I counted 15 last time I polled the group.

So it was somewhat surprising to me personally when I found a large ad network I had never even heard of, much less understood.

That network is aCerno, the digital side of I-Behavior, which has years and years and years and years and years of very successful experience in direct mail.

DIFFERENT PAGES, DIFFERENT BUYING PROBABILITIES

aCerno is just plain fascinating, so let me tell you a little bit about them. But first we need to draw distinctions between four kinds of web pages: HTTP, BUYPATH (HTTPS and HTTP portions of the buying funnel,) SOCIAL, and SEARCH.

HTTP pages are...well, the bulk of web pages online.

BUY PATH: Pages that are actually part of those last moments of a consumer's decision to buy something online.

SOCIAL: Social media pages. These are also HTTP pages (almost always), but the reason I draw a distinction between HTTP-SOCIAL and HTTP-OTHER will be more transparent in a moment.


SEARCH: The pages that collect our queries and report back their findings for our queries.

Now, if you stop and think for a moment as a direct response marketer might, each of these different classes of pages is, on average, going to have a different probability of reaching someone ready to buy something. For instance, social media discussions CAN be about buying stuff, o'course, but tons of them are just talk. For a social net to provide valuable BT info, they will need to be able to draw such distinctions. No doubt that's part of their plans.

Next in line would be HTTP. It is such a broad category that naturally different pages would have different probabilities of reaching a prospective buyer. For example, if one is browsing the page for the book What Happened? on Amazon, versus looking at the front page of Politico, there are naturally different levels of probability that one is going to buy the book.

Most BT companies focus on the HTTP pages at the top and the middle of the buying funnel -- they are where ads run. Unfortunately, though, most of the best HTTP pages for predicting prospective purchases are NOT available for advertising. Amazon won't sell a banner to BN.com on the What Happened? page. But the NYTimes review page for the book is available, and that'd be a goodie for a BT ad. What the traditional BT companies have, though, is VOLUME -- billions of ad placements on millions of pages. And when you aggregate that info, you really can identify people who are more likely to buy. That's what the whole industry is based on.

Next in line would be SEARCH. Search is a task oriented process by definition, and if you could know who had typed "Buy What Happened" into Yahoo Search, well then you've got pretty good odds of reaching good prospect eyeballs. Which is, of course, why SEARCH is such an enormous portion of total online marketing spend. BUT in many cases, there is still a little emotional difference between searching and buying. Search is a great way of increasing your odds, but there is still some waste.

Which brings us to BUYPATH pages. Naturally there are different sorts of such pages. If I get halfway through the shopping cart/buying process and then abandon, mine'r probably good eyeballs for retargeting or for intercepting a customer from some other retailer. Similarly, if a BT company could see that I made a certain purchase, they naturally could determine other related items I might buy in the near future, or when I might be willing to buy again.

SO WHO SEES WHAT?

"TRADITIONAL" BT COMPANIES: Most BT companies see all of the HTTP pages that have "their" ads on them. Note that they don't see ALL HTTP pages -- only the ones where their ads run. They don't see HTTPS, most SEARCH, or most SOCIAL. Generally, HTTPS is considered "too hot to handle" by most companies. That's mighty personal stuff, no matter how anonymized.

RETARGETING COMPANIES (a service that some of the basic BT companies also provide) generally know what you do and where you go on a marketer's site within the HTTP pages.

SEARCH SITES/PORTALS: They can see anything you do on their pages. And you might think it stops there. But if you have a toolbar, like the Google toolbar, they have the ability (and the "right" -- page 137, paragraph four, subsection 11, desk reference 22833495 of that 6 point type agreement you agreed to without reading it said so) to see anything you do that goes through the browser. The extent to which these companies actually DO look at all that info is unknown to me. Most people believe that Google uses more of this info than the other Toolbar-ed portals -- after all, their entire model is based upon knowing you and what you want. Yahoo and MSN can use it, but as I read their privacy policies and T&Cs, I don't think they ARE using it at this time.

SOCIAL NETWORKS know what you are doing on their pages. They know what apps you have, what you chat and blog about, and the like. But their reach beyond their own walls is limited. And it appears some consumers like it that way. Facebook's Beacon debacle really stems from their learning what you did outside their walls.

Gentle reader, if you're flaggin' in terms of attention span, I ask you to bear with me for one more paragraph, because it really is about to get VERY interesting.

THE FUNNEL FRONTIER



So, if you were keeping tabs, you probably noticed that BUYPATH pages are generally not tracked except by the marketers who own a site. And these marketers don't have a view into the sites of other retailers, so their view is fairly limited.

aCerno saw this buying funnel opportunity and ran in. If you think about it, buying funnel tracking is pretty analogous to what DR companies do with Direct Mail (DM.) Everything that can be tracked IS tracked with DM, and there's no aversion to collecting and using PII neither. Heck, the whole business is based upon appending demographic, psychographic, and purchase info to PII.

But let me be clear, aCerno is NOT collecting PII. Rather, they are using random numbered cookies to track users anonymously. I'm not sure if they track HTTPS or just HTTP, but they're right down in there in the bottom of the funnel in that customer stream. In a recent interview with Internet Retailer, archived here, aCerno's CEO explained the tracking process thus:

“If you’re interested in buying a big-screen TV, and you’re on the web going to e-commerce sites and looking at different brands and price points, what we see is a cookie number unique to a browser that is associated with all that viewing of products and information about big-screen TVs,” says Tom Sperry, CEO and chief privacy officer of aCerno. “We know cookie 456789 is probably very interested in purchasing a large-screen TV. Our advertisers can deliver a message to that user and influence that purchase decision on which brand he’s going to buy and where he’s going to purchase.”

The model aCerno uses is to combine data from over 375 major retailers and develop behavior profiles of consumers based upon this cross seller experience. Many have compared their model to the convention among catalogers to pool mailing lists and interest areas to collectively improve ROI. The list of retailer sites is a secret. And for damned good reason. Talk about opening the kimono! These companies are entrusting aCerno with amazingly sensitive info from the perspective of their businesses.

WEB NOT DR ENOUGH?

What aCerno says, interestingly, is that before they came along, online worked under a broadcast rather than a DR model, and that their network changes all that. Because they collect these buyer profiles and then buy ads from publishers to target audiences off the retailer sites. Let me be clear, this may sound like retargeting but it is actually much larger than that. This is full fledged cross category predictive BT based upon BUYPATH info.

I've never used them, but the model intrigues me, and I think it is worth a look for DR marketers. Like any other decision to use a network, one must compare sales and pricing to other networks to find the most efficient opps. But their model is very different, so if I had lots of units to move, I'd RFP 'em. Never hurts to see...

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Dinnatime Yo

It's Never Too Early to Make a Christmas Gift List...

Fembots are Easy to Pick Up

A very cool new app from Svedka Vodka, courtesy of Black Bag Advertising and Real Time Matrix. What I like about this concept is that the brand is using existing consumer interests and existing web content to create a richer sense of the political/social brand image they are creating for the year. Why make your own content when the best content is already out there ready to be shared and linked to your brand.

Innovation in brand development is something we as an industry should
reward. So grab a fembot, but it on your iGoogle or whatnot, and spread the word. Oh, and you need a daily fix of The Onion and Perez. ;-)

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Craigslist Makes Easy Work of Another Pretender

According to this post on Tech Crunch, Microsoft is leaving the classifieds biz. I guess nobody does it like our lad Craig.

Reason Number 28 that TV is Dying

...when TV has to apologize for the time filler content they made up the day before.



BTW, this show is being cancelled.

Ten minutes well wasted...

TVLAND AWARDS PHOTOS

White Paper: Mobile Marketing

U 2 can B an Xpert n mobile. Or have a grounding in the basics, anyway.

Download it here.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper: Marketing on Facebook

Another C:SF contribution to knowledge. Or soemthing. Does what it says on the tin. Download it here.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper: Marketing in Games

Another recent white paper is about the ways people can market in online and shrinkwrapped games. Find it here.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper: New Agency Models

At Catalyst:SF we produce a lot of thought pieces, and while many of them are listed in my sidebar, I thought I would do a post about each because most of my traffic copmes from topical search.

We also make them available without sign up to a mailing list or whatnot.

Cory's recent paper on how to fix the ad biz is definitely worth your time. Find it here.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper: Downloadable Media

At Catalyst:SF we produce a lot of thought pieces, and while many of them are listed in my sidebar, I thought I would do a post about each because most of my traffic copmes from topical search.

We also make them available without sign up to a mailing list or whatnot.

Cory Treffiletti did a recent whitepaper on downloadable media and advertising that really summarizes the topic nicely. Find it here.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

How DO Young People Develop Political Views In 2008?

This amazing video from Ad Age will hit you like a wind in International Falls in January. And perhaps frighten you.

Warcraft Shame

From the UK gaming pub MCV comes the results of a research study showing that Warcraft players have more shame for their addiction than porn addicts. My favorite quote:

Dr. Jerald Block: "The computer gamers tend to be harder to treat. People feel a lot of shame around computer games. Whereas, it's socially acceptable to have a porn problem.”

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Reason Number 27 That TV is Dying...

The web stretches and contracts with the amount of news in a day. Big news day? More and longer pages on CNN. Slow news day, fewer pages.

Whereas with TV, the hours must be filled...which results in this sort of speculation and "expert" discussion. A terrorist fist jab? ?? ???



Almost as banal as the CNN report on what cereal Saddam Hussein liked in captivity. As I recall, it was Count Chocula.

Hands on the Twit

Well, they tell me that unusual headlines build traffic. What Hands on the Twit is...is a paraphrase of Fingers on the Pulse of Twitter. Which is an apt description of Summize, a search engine for Twitter posts and (soon) blogs and reviews. I love tools that help one keep abreast of the buzz out there about various topics. And I think Summize should be a part of the daily buzz checking of many brands who want to know what people are saying about them.

According to TechMeme, Twitter and Summize partnered closely to cover the human buzz about the launch of the iPhone -- which seems like one of those dislocative moments -- like using text to vote for Idol -- that holds the potential to significantly grow Summize and Twitter usage overnight. Nice idea.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Toggl Correction

A little more than a week ago I did a post about Toggl, an online time and project management solution. Apparently I misspoke. I said the premium version of their service costs $19 a seat. This is not right. It is $19 a TEAM, regardless how many members. So I significantly underestimated the VALUE they can offer. Mea culpa. I will also be correcting the actual post. Sorry to Toggl.

BlackJackians Take Note: LIVIMA event June 16

I have no idea what a resident of Las Vegas is called. Las Vegan (too much association with bad tasting cookies made without butter and eggs,) Vegasian (too space alien a la Star Trek (1960s version),) Las Vegasites (sounds like a vegetable parasite -- none of these seemed to work.

So I have coined BlackJackian, and BlackJackians should take note of the upcoming LVIMA event on June 16 at 6:00PM at the CatHouse Lounge in the Luxor. Sponsored by the fine people at Atlas...who should be applauded for supporting digital outside of SF and NYC.

Details heya: link. There's even a link that will automatically add it to your Outlook. The wonders of the Internet never seem to end...

FUNDAMENTALS OF AD NETWORKS: POST 4

DOES THE WORLD NEED ANOTHER AD NETWORK?

Hmm. For the first few months of this year, there was rarely a week when AT LEAST one new ad network wasn’t launched. Some of the forces that have driven this growth include:

• Relatively low learning curve and infrastructure requirements
• Potential for high profitability (if successful.)
• Investor frenzy to invest in networks, and the payment of extremely high multiples for such networks as Glam.

There are many that feel that too many ad networks have been launched without a great deal of unique competitive strengths or critical mass.

Given the glut of networks out there, those who are contemplating starting a new network should consider some or all of the following questions:

Proof of Concept

• Is the offering of the proposed network unique? The world does not want or need another me-too horizontal or vertical network. It may want and need one with a clearly defined and differentiated purpose.
• Is there high quality, desirable content to be aggregated? In some market segments, there really isn’t much high quality inventory left to represent.
• Can you expect consistent advertiser demand? If a particular category is simply “hot” but not one for which consistent, sustained demand has been proved, you need to consider the odds of market stability. As an example, a number of widget ad networks have sprung up, among many others. While at the height of the widget craze it may have seemed possible to have half a dozen or more successful networks in this space, as this market cools to a simmer it is likely that only the strongest will survive.
Logistical Issues

• Can you build a quality team for your new network? It is brutally difficult to attract and retain sales, marketing and other staff in the current environment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is easier for vertical networks to attract teams because potential employees may be very passionate about the vertical. For example, one would expect an ad network like Sportgenic, which is geared to sport enthusiasts, to have an easier time attracting employees than, say, the 37th general audience ad network.
• Do you have pre-existing relationships with publishers and advertisers within the market segment you are targeting? Without them, it may be difficult to get on the radar of buyers or publishers.
• Can you achieve critical mass?

Financial Issues

• Do you have the capital necessary to get started? It would be highly inappropriate to expect profitability immediately in a market with so many players. You will need resources to sustain you as you build.

Other Issues

• In an environment of hundreds of networks, does your team have the passion necessary to succeed? This will be critical because providing unsurpassed customer service is essential in a market as competitive as this.
• Can you bring thought leadership to the market that you are serving? Along with price, quality, and reach, publishers and advertisers consider factors like the extent to which you can add to their knowledge and expertise with an audience. This knowledge may increase CPMs over time, or allow advertisers to develop more effective programs and creative. This will not make a buyer pay $20 CPM over a $5 CPM, but over and over buyers tell us that they are loyal to networks that add to their knowledge and provide game changing ideas.

CONCLUSIONS

There are many reasons why ad networks are playing a large and growing role in digital. These factors, coupled with the massive multiples investors demonstrated a willingness to pay for such networks as Glam.com, Blue Lithium, and 24-7 Real Media, have made ad networks the “darlings” of 2008. As the market has grown, networks have specialized into broad reach horizontal, niche-focused vertical, and new media categories, all of which continue to get play in the marketplace.

But as is typical in an emerging business area, there will likely come a day of reckoning when the market culls the weaker companies and concepts and consolidates more share and revenue in a small set of major players.

As companies contemplate entering this space, they need to take a hard look at their network concept to ensure it is strongly differentiated. Because great ideas will profit, but weak ones will surely wither and die.

FUNDAMENTALS OF AD NETWORKS: POST 3

INTER-NETWORK “HORSE TRADING”

Just as sites use networks to dispose of excess inventory, networks often sell impressions to one another to better balance supply and demand.

For example, suppose you run Acme Ad Network, and have 100 Million impressions in inventory but only 90 Million in orders. In this scenario, you might try to sell these excess impressions to another network that may have more orders than inventory. While the price you get for these excess impressions will be relatively low, little revenue is better than no revenue.

This sort of cross network selling is very common. In a world dealing in trillions of impressions per month, it stands to reason that such transactions are a fact of life.

In fact, some networks buy and sell impressions to other networks expressly for the purpose of arbitrage.

And example: suppose you are Acme again. You may buy impressions from a site having no possible means of selling them yourself but rather on the probability that you will be able to sell them to another network for a profit. This sort of transaction can happen on multiple occasions for the same impression, like this.

1. Acme buys impressions from a publisher for 75 cents CPM.
2. Acme sells those impressions to AAA Network for $1.00 CPM.
3. AAA Network sells them to Ace Network for $1.25.
4. Ace Network sells them to an advertiser for $1.50.

In this case, each network has made 25 cents on the arbitrage. Naturally, these figures are purely for illustrative purposes, but the principle is there. Problem is, those profits come at the expense of both the client and the publisher.

More and more clients and publishers know about this, which is one of the forces giving rise to the establishment and growth of ad auctions or exchanges.

AD NETWORKS AND DIRECT RESPONSE

The Direct Response (DR) side of marketing tends to spend a great deal of money on networks. This is because:

• Network inventory tends to sell for less than inventory purchased from individual publishers. Since lower CPM tends to drive better DR results, such marketers favor approaches that offer lower media costs, regardless of inventory “quality.”
• DR campaigns usually rely on massive reach and behavioral targeting, both areas in which networks excel.
• As discussed earlier, some major networks sell on a CPC or CPA basis, which gives DR marketers greater cost certainty and a significantly lower risk profile to their buys.

For most DR brands, cheap, minimally targeted inventory offers the best ROI. DR advertisers bought the lion’s share of network inventory until relatively recently.

Networks love DR advertisers because the revenue and demand are reliable. But as brand advertisers have become more active in the space, networks are working hard to attract their dollars as well.

AD NETWORKS AND BRAND ADVERTISERS

Brand advertisers are indeed taking up a growing share of network inventory. Recent growth seems to be related to the following factors:

• Greater awareness of ad networks in general.
• Increasing demand for inventory on major sites like portals has led many to look for other high reach advertising solutions.
• Networks have increased their transparency, giving greater comfort to advertisers who are reticent to advertise on sites sight unseen.
• Networks are better policing their sites for objectionable content.
• The growing list of sophisticated targeting options, including behavioral, makes it easier to deliver segmented messages to large numbers of prospects and customers.
• Better ad opportunities – beyond the basic IAB standard banners – are fueling greater creativity.

Tomorrow: Does the world need another ad network?

FUNDAMENTALS OF AD NETWORKS: POST 2

NETWORK BUYING MODELS

Different ad networks sell their inventory based upon different buying models. The models mirror those used by individual publishers:

• CPM ad networks sell inventory based upon a Cost Per Thousand(M).
• CPA ad networks sell based upon on a per action basis – like $X Cost Per Acquisition
• CPC ad networks sell based upon a Cost Per Click.

Most people in the industry believe that CPM networks offer higher quality inventory, though naturally CPA and CPC networks dispute that.

Many ad networks sell through multiple models – the amount of inventory available through CPC or CPA is generally far lower than what is available through CPM, because the two former models require publishers to assume some of the risk of a buy.

THE NEED FOR AD NETWORKS

Marketers and advertisers face a number of challenges that make it more difficult to effectively deliver messages to an audience:

• Media fragmentation and the decline of television audiences.
• Digital fragmentation and the decline of the portals’ share of total page views in favor of niche “midtail” and “longtail” sites.
• The labor intensive nature of digital media planning and buying versus traditional. Whereas, for example, a handful of people can buy a billions dollars worth of TV inventory in a year, it would take a large army of people to do the same effectively in digital.
• Downward pressure on media planning and buying fees, which leads to fewer people spending more money in the marketplace. This reduces the time and resources available for driving innovative and immersive media programs.
• The explosion in the number of digital platforms, from mobile and social media to widgets and in-game marketing. These new options further fragment the market without increasing planning and buying fees.
• The general lack of training in the digital media planning and buying spaces, which places enormous responsibilities on teams with modest amounts of experience.
• Further declines in the percentage of consumers who actually notice and interact with standard, widely available digital ad units.
• Increasing demand for digital advertising across the board, which makes it more difficult to deliver any large scale campaigns online.

ENTER THE AD NETWORKS

In large part due to the factors listed above, ad networks have exploded onto the scene. Their structure and services really do deliver at least partial solutions to all of these challenges.

To address general media fragmentation ad networks provide aggregated audiences of millions – sometimes tens of millions. The largest networks can actually reach upwards of 90% of all online households in a single month. Strong verticals can reach enormous percentages of the niches they serve.

To address digital fragmentation, ad networks provide aggregated audiences.

To address declining planning and buying fees, ad networks provide one-stop buying for as many as thousands of sites.

To address labor intensiveness of digital buying, ad networks offer one-stop buying, consolidated trafficking, and consolidated and automated reporting.

To address the explosion in the number of digital platforms, networks are branching into emerging media and new, emerging platform specific networks (like mobile) are now reaching critical mass. Many networks are also offering consolidated cross media reporting in some instances.

Tommorrow: Horsetrading and the role ad networks play for DR and brand advertisers.

FUNDAMENTALS OF AD NETWORKS: POST 1

This week I want to provide some basic info about ad networks wot those who may have limited familiarity on the topic. The idea is that since ad networks are such a hot topic, it makes sense to provide a solid foundation of info so people know what they are talking about and why they have been so hot of late.

The content here is excerpted from a "Fundamentals of Ad Networks" white paper that will be made available this week.

So without further ado...

INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS AN AD NETWORK

Lately it seems like there is a new ad network launched every day, or at least every week. The number of independent networks has exploded, particularly over the past 9-12 months.

Let’s start with the basics. Ad networks aggregate online advertising inventory from sites that find it difficult to sell that inventory on their own. Major sites (e.g., MSN) avail themselves of ad networks to sell the proportion of inventory that remains unsold after their sales forces make their best efforts to book it. The dirty little secret of online publishing is that even the largest sites have huge quantities of unsold inventory to move.

Let’s take Yahoo for an example. Yahoo finds it easy to sell its highly targeted inventory in key verticals, for example Autos. It also has a readymade market for its very low cost, relatively untargeted inventory, like ads in Yahoo Mail. One of their toughest challenges is to sell inventory in the middle – ads on contextual pages, but ones where advertiser demand are modest. Ad networks can help vend this and other forms of unsold inventory and make an enormous difference in the publications’ bottom lines.

Minor sites often use ad networks to sell all of their inventory because they believe it will be more profitable to do so versus hiring and operating their own sales forces. Here, a well negotiated deal with an ad network can make niche publishing highly profitable.

It is important to note that even if a niche site attracts people who are very valuable to advertisers, it can be difficult for such companies to connect with planners and buyers because so many publishers want to reach these individuals “with money.” Since planners and buyers have a lot more to do than just meet with media properties, not everyone gets a slot.

TYPES OF AD NETWORKS

Most ad networks as falling into three broad classes:

Vertical Ad Networks aggregate inventory within a specific category. Such a category can be a demographic target or a contextual category (like auto, or real estate.) The idea behind Vertical networks is expertise through specialization – that a vertical network will have unique knowledge that helps sites sell out their inventory and helps advertisers derive extraordinary value from their buys. The most lucrative ad networks dominate their spaces and as a result can command higher prices for their inventory.

Horizontal Ad Networks aggregate content across demos and contexts, which can give them enormous reach. These networks buy inventory from portals, small sites, sometimes even other ad networks. They offer advertisers the advantage of scale and publishers a means of liquidating enormous amounts of inventory.

Platform Specific Networks aggregate content on a specific digital platform other than the Internet. So for example mobile or gaming.

Tomorrow: Network buying models and why ad networks are growing so quickly in importance.