Ad Networks are not for the faint of heart

First, this disclaimer: Doug Wintz has worked closely with Burst’s adConductor business in the process of sourcing  and securing ad management solutions for his ad network customers. Doug is a customer and we think Doug is very smart for all the reasons that are on display in his iMedia piece today about starting your own ad network.  

This post is not about selling Doug more stuff, however. It is, actually, about the earlier post in this space about the hubris of the Internet, “Taking ourselves too seriously,” wherein the realities of the marketplace and the limits of technology to overcome them are discussed. Doug Wintz’s experience and his column today tell more of that story. So, you want to start your own ad network. Per Doug, what you need to know is that success is people-driven. It is about having the tools, but also the willingness to meet the needs of web publishers in your network. It is about customer service.

Customer service is the part that has foiled many online. It implies interaction, which implies middle-men, which some would rather have outlawed online in favor of strictly automated relationships. Have your computer call my computer. But that is not marketplace reality. In many respects – and perhaps ironically, but only because the industry has insisted on seeing it differently – the Internet is more people and relationship-driven than offline media, which is largely impersonal and impenetrable (have you written to an editor lately?). Web publishers are mostly people and not businesses, and their sense of self is correspondingly more acute. They want advocates and problem-solvers and response-givers. They want partners. For that reason entering the ad network business is not for the faint of heart, as Doug Wintz says.

Something to Dwell on

Media Post reported on the new Dwell Partner Network today, a collection of more than 30 design and architectural web sites “to bring together Web sites featuring the people, the experts, the products, the innovative ideas and the ongoing conversations taking place around design.”

Please put aside the fact that the Dwell Partner Network will be powered by Burst Media’s adConductor platform, which is mentioned as part of today’s announcement. The network model that Dwell brings to market is the right one for a distributed, fragmented media economy such as we have today. It marries the need to preserve the relevancy of media to audiences with the need for media to have scale - both good things.

What would Dwell’s alternatives be in a traditional media environment? Buy more architectural and design magazines, or start them from scratch. Perhaps do nothing. Each option is risky and expensive and hard to scale if you want to grow. As a result, the temptation – not at Dwell, but certainly in other places over the years – has been to add content (or programming) tangential to the core editorial proposition and/or to simply make the content more accessible to larger, non-endemic audiences that will be less willing to pay.

Now (long before now, actually) comes the Internet and the chance to scale without compromising media brand promises. Build a network. Imbue it with the power of a dominant brand. Invite dedicated content producers to join your table. Enjoy the reach you need to be efficient for advertisers with the intimacy you need to be effective for them. Add value to audiences by the addition of appropriate advertising messages. 

High reach + high composition. It’s a beautiful thing and something to dwell on.

Correction: technology makes it easy to buy display ads across multiple web sites

Carol Bartz’s comments regarding APT during Yahoo’s earnings call this week got Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro’s attention. She opined in her blog that it remains  “a big pain for advertisers to buy display advertising across multiple sites”. That’s just not true, technically. There are numerous platforms out there – including ours, adConductor, I am eager to point out – that do the job of managing display inventory across multiple web sites. If you happen to use adConductor, the capability enables deeply sophisticated targeting, easy sales and campaign management and to the advertiser we can provide site-by-site reporting of campaign statisics.

This complexity was the first “network” problem that had to get solved at the commercial dawn of the Internet. And, while it may remain (very) difficult to navigate the planning choices and standards available online, if the final requirement is running ads across multiple web sites, the capability has been there for at least 14 years, with one order and one bill.

BPA Certifies Burst and adConductor For the Ninth Time

Today, we announced that BPA Worldwide has certified our adConductor platform for the ninth consecutive year. As the company has grown in terms of campaigns, publishers, and ads served through our ad server, we have continued to accurately report and manage our systems and our data to ensure that our results are accurate and accounted for. BPA Worldwide is the leader in media auditing, and Burst was the first online ad network to go through BPA’s rigorous auditing process. With this ninth audit we continue to adhere to this important standard to ensure that online advertisers and publishers can work with Burst Media and its divisions with the security of this audit procedure. Additionally, BPA is recognized by the IAB, meaning that Burst is an IAB Measurement Audited ad serving system.

So with all that said, why is auditing so important?  As 300 or so ad networks have emerged in the past 4 years, it has become confusing for media buyers to know who to trust. Similarly, adConductor manages online delivery for some large online ad networks that need to trust the systems they use to accurately manage and report on the complex process of distributing online ads for their own ad sellers and buyers. With 10s of billions of ad impressions riding on the adConductor platform, this ongoing recognition that we provide the proper accounting for the transactions that flow through the system helps both ad sellers and ad buyers that work with Burst and adConductor rest easy.

MTVN and Burst Media’s adConductor

MTVN announced their complete vertical network strategy today, launching their demographic-centered ad networks under the Tribes umbrella (MTV Enters Crowded Ad Network Sector – ClickZ). This is an exciting contribution to growth of the vertical network business, and a validation of the work that Burst Media’s adConductor platform can provide. They are a great partner for us and for the publishers they are working with.

To learn about our AdConductor technology and services visit our web site at www.adconductor.com.

Online Ad Networks and the IAB/Bain Pricing Report

Here is a look at 7 online publishers and how online ad networks affect their business:

IAB/Bain Digital Pricing Study

This is interesting on two levels:

1. Clearly, there is a need for publishers to better manage the yield on their inventory. While it is still safer to let an ad impression go unmonetized than it is to let an airline seat fly empty, knowing when to make those decisions in order to maximize revenue is the next big challenge for online publishers. Very few ad servers (our AdConductor platform and 24/7 Real Media’s OAS) work for the publisher in that regard.

2. Ad networks are sopping up excess inventory. The issue though is that they are sopping it up at bargain-basement rates. Publishers need to think about the options they have for ad networks, deciding between blind and transparent networks (for the publisher to see the advertiser), those who manage block lists well, and those that will sell the value of the remnant inventory to the right advertisers to keep advertising quality high. As publishers and ad networks learn to get along better to fill excess inventory, these trade-offs will become part of the discussion of where to place great, albeit not premium, ad space.