Start-Up Watch COD: Shiny Ads Drives Revenue for Pubs From Thousands of Small Advertisers

Most pubs are focused on ad revenue as their primary source of income. Many have sales forces to sell direct, and then offer up the rest to exchanges and ad networks that can backfill -- albeit at far lower CPMs. It stands to reason, then, that if a service could help pubs sell more inventory direct, then pubs could realize a higher average CPM and higher total revenue.

For most pubs, small and local advertisers are difficult to service directly because the costs of direct sales outweigh the revenue to be gained from this class of marketer. If an advertiser is spending a few thousand per month, having them work with an internal person quickly wipes out any margin advantage. This is why so many pubs have minimums of $10K-$25K before they will consider taking business.

A Toronto-based start-up called Shiny Ads is out to change this dynamic by providing a plug and play ad sales solution that makes it possible to accept small contracts profitably. The key to their model is a self serve experience that lets the small advertiser identify their goals and targeting parameters and pay for inventory by credit card. All costly labor intensive tasks have been automated so the publisher can make real money on these small accounts.

Pubs can begin working with Shiny Ads by filling out a simple form that asks for the pubs monthly unique and content categories, as well as which ad serving platform it uses. From there, the publisher simply embeds the Shiny Ads experience into it existing Advertiser pages. Instead of incurring all of the people costs for serving <$5000 monthly accounts, Shiny Ads customers get to offer a modular buying experience demonstrated to drive high conversions.

In exchange, the pub pays a percentage of all dollars sold through Shiny Ads. Fees range from 20-25%, though very large sites can also explore custom pricing models with Shiny Ads.

The full feature set of Shiny Ads includes:

•Seamless integration with DFP, OpenX, AdGear, Appnexus, Adtech and GaM
•Support for any banner size and text size you offer
•A DIY banner builder so that small businesses without existing creative can quickly make attractive units to run on your site
•Flexibility to sell on any pricing model from CPM to CPC to CPD
•End to end financial solution that charges the client and quickly delivers your revenue share
Their interesting and informative intro video is here:

Introduction to Shiny Ads' Self-Service Advertising Platform from Shiny Ads on Vimeo.

I like the Shiny Ads approach because they have so simplified the process of integrating their offering and working with small advertisers. I would imagine that setting up a system through which to capitalize on this revenue opportunity is on a lot of pubs’ to do lists. But rather far down in the priorities because of the time and expense they would incur to create a home grown approach. With Shiny Ads, pubs can quickly get started and ensure that they are not leaving a lot of small advertiser dollars on the table.

Small advertisers really do hold the potential to make a serious difference to pub revenue and profitability. Shiny Ads just made it a lot tougher to overlook that opportunity!

Start-Up Watch COD: Wingsplay Rewards Influentials for Distributing Your Vids

Viral distribution has always been one of the Holy Grails of digital. The idea of people seeking out your marketing messages and then distributing them for you – at no cost – has activated the salivary glands of many a brand leader.

But for most brands, it shares another characteristic with the Holy Grail: elusiveness. Many brands have tried to create “viral” programs, and very few have succeeded.

Part of it is our own fault. We fail to recognize that our ham fisted marketing messages aren’t the sorts of things that people care about or want to share. But there’s another thing. Some brands jump the hurdle of relevance and make content that people would share if they knew about it. But those same brands often fail because the would be spreaders never see their content.

Enter

Wingsplay

. What this company does is offer a platform through which you can work with influential people in social media to distribute your videos on a cost per view basis. Instead of paying a publisher to drive plays, you reward influential voices online through Wingsplay.

So let’s start with the first question on your minds. Is it “OK” to reward people to distribute messages in social media? A couple of years ago there were some shady businesses driving blog posts about brands without disclosing the compensation they were providing. This ain’t like that. Rather, I’d liken it to paying a celeb to drink your Pepsi or use your basketball shoes.

Says Wingsplay Founder Olivier Lasry,

As celebrities are paid to lend their name and image to campaigns, Wingsplay rewards influential social media users to share the most entertaining viral ads. But this democratization of endorsement goes way further: contrary to working with big celebrities, influential social media users have strong ties to their social connections and 2-way conversations with these friends, fans and followers. They consequently generate much more engagement and visibility,

Online content is more likely to be played and interacted with when it has been posted by a friend versus a celebrity simply because the former values their comments and interactions much more than the latter.

Wingsplay also ensures that every post made as a result of the platform transparently communicates its sponsored nature. That ensures you live up to the letter – and the spirit – of the FTC regulations.

Not just anybody is flogging your videos. It’s not like that at all. Rather, you choose your target audience, and then set a CPV for the program. Then, those that LIKE YOUR CONTENT and are interested in your program distribute your video to people with a high degree of likelihood to be in your target audience. They are then compensated based upon the plays they drive. Obviously, programs that offer a higher bounty are going to attract more influencer attention, but in my view most of these influencers will ultimately select content they like best. But a healthy CPV wouldn’t hoit!

I like this approach. I am a huge believer in the need to seed video distribution. While we may think or hope that millions of people are constantly scanning the web looking for messages, the reality is that there is so much content out there that even the best stuff sometimes dies on the vine. I constantly find good content online that never really went anywhere because you had to really be digging around to find it. And most people aren’t spending time online doing that.

With a service like Wingsplay, you get passed the initial awareness problem so that your ideas are seen by thousands – maybe even millions. Additionally, you get to target the sorts of people who you want to expose to your video. Where it goes from there, of course, is up to the quality of the creative idea and the content itself.

ad:tech NY’s Startup Spotlight competition nominations are open!

ad:tech’s second start-up competition is on! If you went to ad:tech SF this year, you saw that start-ups are now a big part of the program, and NY will witness the second start-up competition this coming November. For NY, there are four categories of start-ups in play:

•Shopper marketing
•Social
•Mobile
•Gaming
This competition is expressly for companies that give brands a way to participate, in keeping with the show’s digital marketing focus. ad:tech will profile 16 startup companies with promising services and technologies for brands and marketers in the digital space.

Finalists will also get a kiosk on the ad:tech floor to showcase their wares.

So why is ad:tech’s competition so important?

$8,000,000,000.00

That is the amount of buying power held by the ad:tech audience. Presenting at this – the largest digital marketing event in the world – gives you more direct access to media and marketing decision makers. Whereas other shows focus on connecting with VCs and money people, ad:tech is focused on finding PAYING CUSTOMERS.

Four one-hour sessions in the ad:tech NY Conference will be focused on the competition, one for each of the categories listed above.

There are a few prereqs:

•Finalists will be delivering a short presentation of their capabilities, which MUST be focused on how their offering helps marketers.
•Must be founded since 2008
•Must have moved beyond Angel or Seed, and have a product that already exists, at least in beta
•Must incorporate a new technology or platform or that exploits a new behavior that helps today’s digital marketers
Hurry! Nominations close Friday July 22 at 5PM Pacific. Apply here.

Note that the competition is separate from my project here in identifying a start-up per day. I am just a concerned citizen – LOL – and not an ad:tech representative.

To be eligible, even if I have written about you here, you will need to apply (or have a fan apply on your behalf.)

Start-Up Watch COD: Do@ Transforms Mobile Search by Querying Apps Instead of Web Pages

Most people agree that the most useful and pleasant mobile experiences occur in apps, not on mobile-appropriate web pages. Apps have been the key to iPhone’s ascendance on domination in smart phones, and they have also propelled Android ahead of venerable competitors like Blackberry and Nokia’s Symbian. More apps means more market share, broadly speaking. Few or no apps = death in today’s smart phone environment.

But Mobile Search was singularly focused on finding the best content on web pages. At least it was until now.

Do@ (say Doh-At) is an Israel- and San Francisco-based start-up focused on transforming mobile search by querying and providing results from apps rather than the web. When you search for a term in Do@, what you get in response is a sort of visual menu of app screen shots housing content appropriate to your request.

So what does that mean?

If you want information or the trailer on Hangover 2, an ordinary mobile search result might refer you to the web site, which may or may not have a mobile version. With Do@, you get screen shots of the IMDB , Flixster, and other theatrically oriented apps. Tapping a particular result takes you to a version of the app delivered in HTML 5, essentially a web page but with the appearance and functionality of an app. This “page” simulates the functionality of the fully functioning app, and enables you to experience all of its benefits.

Here’s the vid:



Because app viewing experiences are designed for the small screen, there is a high degree of likelihood that your overall experience as well as info access will be better through an app. Additionally, because the user does not actually have to download the app before they review the content, Do@ actually offers a powerful trial mechanism for app developers anxious to get more users, and for users to try before they buy

Because so much mobile search has a local component, Do@ takes your location into consideration when you make your query. So, for instance, if you are looking for a restaurant recommendation nearby, the app will connect you to location-focused results in the Yelp app and the like.

I think this is a big deal for digital and for brands. For digital, it is, perhaps, a really positive harbinger of a broader revolution in mobile user experience. I believe the figures are that mobile web access will surpass PC web access in about 2013 in the US – it already has in several Asian countries. But in order for Mobile Internet to deliver on its promise, basic connected utilities need to evolve experienctially to be OPTIMIZED for the handset. Since Search is arguably the most ubiquitous such utility, Do@ is an important step in the mobile transformation of the web.

From a marketing standpoint, the app-centric nature of Do@ may be a reason for many marketers to rethink their mobile advertising and marketing strategies, opting for a greater presence in the world of apps. While it is too soon to tell how much app usage will come from Do@ or its future imitators, it is plain that we’ll need to take a serious look at those figures as they materialize.

Do@ has made its debut as an iPhone app, and is available for free in the App Store.

Start-Up Watch COD: Media6Degrees Drives Strong Results By Applying an “Act-Alike” Social Science Principle to Targeting

I gravitate to companies that take a different approach or direction in digital media.

Because there are now so many companies doing more or less the same things with the same data points and the same units, many of us are skeptical about competing claims in the same industry categories. Raise your hand if you find the claims of reach, quality, and transparency a little tiresome when spouted by ad networks. Nuff said.

So I like different, and because of that I have liked Media6Degrees from the first time I heard about them. Media6Degrees was founded upon the social science principle that people with similar interests tend to cluster into groups that share brand affinities and purchase patterns. They use a four stage process to deliver results.

1.Identify: The company begins an engagement with a client by cookie-ing visitors to client web sites, taking one or two weeks to collect enough data points to build a seed population for a campaign.
2.Match: They identify the clustering behavior of your site visitors on the web, and match potential prospects (usually in the tens of millions of people) to deliver scale.
3.Execute: They deliver media to those matches through exchange based buying:.
4.Refine: They adjust the model based upon new learnings and refinement

So imagine you visit a brand web site and then go on your merry way, doing the things you like to do online. Like visiting blogs about quarter horses, sending e-greetings, checking the A’s scores, lurking in eBay auctions for beanie babies, taking a ten-minute break looking at paparazzi photos of celeb cellulite, flipping over to Facebook to leave a status update about how busy and overworked you are, and so on.

Your set of activities is compared to those of tens of millions of others. Individuals that demonstrate similar web consumption patterns are identified as having a high degree of likelihood of having similar interests. People who behave like you start seeing banners and videos for the product. And over time, the set of people seeing the banners and videos is refined to drive better metrics and scale.

Media6Degrees isn’t collecting user interest data, or leveraging 3rd party interest data. They actually DON’T CARE that you like cellulite photos and quarter horses. As with all reputable networks, individual identities are anonymized. But Media6Degrees offers two additional layers of anonymity – they don’t try to record your interests or bucket the types of content you visit.

You aren’t classified into some sort of “horses and corsets” psychographic to them. They don’t even focus on your demographics. What a person is – is someone with similar interests as certain other people, ergo more likely to have interest in the brands that those other people buy.

In this way Media6Degrees identifies the “Social Signature” of a brand. Then they purchase media against others who demonstrate similar interests, constantly tightening and refining the algorithm to improve the match.

That refining and winnowing is important because Media6Degrees optimizes to a desired metric, not just site visitation. They often find that while site visitors have one behavior pattern, actual buyers have somewhat different patterns.

A new offering called Planner can also provide brands and pubs information on the best sites to find brand users, and the best brands through which to monetize site users.

Anyway. By constantly tightening these Social Signature parameters they drive better and better results.

How much better? Well, I will only speak for the half dozen or so campaigns that I have knowledge of – ones that we fielded at Catalyst S+F. In every single case Media6Degrees was the number one or number two performer on the plans. By wide margins. We’ve seen results more than 3X better than any other plan element on several occasions.

And what I like best is that they drive those mega results by breaking the rules. While the rest of the world is getting more and more interest data from third parties, Media6Degrees says they don’t give a stuff about your interests, only a sense of how what you do on line is similar to what other individuals do. I am not condemning interest based targeting by saying this. Just pointing out that there may be more than one route to Zanzibar.

Me, I like having another path to take.

I like rule breakers. The crowd zigs. Media6Degrees zags. And based upon the results we have seen…zagging = good.

Start-Up Watch COD: Scayl Delivers “HDemail” That Enables Attachments of Unlimited Size

Today’s post is to tell you about a new service that you may find rather useful in your own professional and personal lives.

Scayl is a start-up out to “fix” email by eliminating many of the restrictions that impede it from being a great sharing platform for larger files.

While sending and receiving large files has long been a nuisance, the problems are only getting worse as richer and more high def content enters our daily lives. 10 years ago, a couple of megs was enough to activate firewalls in many companies. While most companies have raised their file size limits significantly since then, the reality is that the size of the sort of content files we might like to share are rising faster than the capacity of most email servers and platforms to process them.

This is particularly true given the ascendancy of video as a critical means of business and personal communication.

The Scayl system eliminates many of these issues by allowing a file to be downloaded from multiple sources and on a background, streaming basis. So if you want to send that home vid of baby’s first steps or that vid of your presentation from the last sales meeting, the recipient receives the file from any Scayl enabled computer that already has it. The more people who have the file, the faster it will be shared to the recipient. It’s a concept that you are familiar with if your ever did P2P file sharing.

Additionally, users can start viewing content like a video before the download is complete.

But there’s a lot more to this service than just that. Scayl also offers superior authentication and security layers that help reduce the threats of phishing and other sorts of attacks. It can also be used with the leading email clients, including Outlook.

Here’s the video of their pitch from last Fall’s DEMO competition.



Businesses can reduce server and file distribution costs with Scayl, while also beefing up their email security. For enterprise the benefits really kick in when a company is regularly sharing large files to many people. It appears that Scayl will be charging a modest annual fee per email account, with no charge for individual file shares.

Scayl facilitates delivery on a broad range of connected devices from PCs and Macs to tablets, set top boxes, HD TVs, and media servers. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Scayl is an ambitious outfit. By transforming email – the most familiar of online communication utilities – into something more useful, their efforts are likely to breathe additional life into what remains one of the most ubiquitous means of sharing content digitally.