Monday, April 30, 2007

2006 Canadian Online Advertising Tops $1 Billion

Online Ad Revenue Surges Forward As Variety Of Factors
Combine for Growth

TORONTO, April 30, 2007 - The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB) today announced that 2006 Canadian Online Advertising Revenues surged to an unprecedented $1.01 billion dollars for the year. The 2006 actuals represent a 26% increase over the $801 million originally estimated by the IAB for 2006; and an 80% increase over the 2005 actuals of $562 million.

Of the $1.01 billion, approximately $208 million or 21% of ad dollars were allocated to the French Canadian Online market, representing growth of 68% over the 2005 actuals of $124 million.

2006 Canadian Online Ad Revenue by Advertising Vehicle, was as follows:







Display advertising (including banner CPM and direct response advertising, plus contests, sponsorship and microsites) - 36%;
Search advertising - 35%;
Classifieds/Directories - 27%; and,
Email - 2%
In actual millions of dollars, 2006 vs. 2005 Canadian Online Ad Revenue by Advertising Vehicle, was as follows:


2006 Canadian Online Ad Revenue by Advertiser Category was also tabulated, and was as follows:

Automotive - 16%;
Consumer Packaged Goods - 14%;
Entertainment (Music, Film, TV) - 9%;
Financial - 16%;
Leisure (Travel, Hotel, Hospitality) - 14%;
Retail - 16%; and,
Other - 15%
What accounts for the 80% jump in 2006 vs. 2005 revenue figures? IAB Canada and Ernst & Young LLP (who tabulated results from the double-blind survey), cite a number of critical factors leading to the increase, including:
· Substantial Revenue Growth Across All Publishers:

Small and Medium publishers (who typically net between $500k to $5M/yr.) showed an average revenue growth of 85% vs. 2005;
Large publishers (who typically net between $5M to $30M/yr.) showed an average revenue growth of 155% vs. 2005; and,
Very Large publishers (who typically net between $30M to $100M/yr.) showed an average revenue growth of 62% vs. 2005.
· Revenue Growth Within Online Ad Networks:
2006 saw substantial growth in revenue for both US and Canadian networks selling "Canadian eyeballs" aggregated across U.S. and Canadian sites.

· More Integration, New Advertisers, New Advertising Choices and New Ad Formats:
More integrated campaigns; more new, blue-chip advertisers entering the market for the first time; more advertising choices for Search; uptake of rich media; and, the addition of video pre-roll advertising to the selection of Online advertising tools, all helped drive the industry forward.
"Add to all of this, results from the 7 CMOST (cross-media optimization) research studies that the IAB has undertaken over the past 4 years, plus the fact that in the past two years alone, over 1,000 senior-level advertiser, agency and publisher representatives have taken the IAB's Intensive One-Day Course in Interactive Marketing and Online Advertising -- and you get a sort of 'perfect storm' that was able to move the Canadian Online advertising dial forward to such an extent," says Paula Gignac, President of IAB Canada.

And there's still more growth to come. IAB Canada's projected total for 2007 Online advertising in Canada, is estimated to be $1.337 billion -- a full 32% more than the 2006 actual of $1.01 billion. "It's interesting," says Gignac. "While it took us 13 years from when the first banner was served on the Internet, until now, to reach the billion dollar mark in Canada, it may only take us another two to three years to reach the second billion. Fascinating times indeed."

About the IAB Canada 2006-07 Canadian Internet Advertising Revenue Report
The 2006 actual revenues and the 2007 estimated revenues were reached after a comprehensive survey of all major Online publishers in Canada. Revenue data was compiled and analyzed by Ernst & Young LLP.

eBay Launches “ToGo” Widgets For Any Listing

eBay Launches “ToGo” Widgets For Any Listing
As you can see with the embedded Flash widget above, eBay is now letting users embed information about any listing or group of listings directly into a website. Their hope is to encourage bloggers and social network users who discuss famous listings to embed the information right into the page. The service will be available at togo.ebay.com this morning.

U.S. Agency Revenue Jumps 8.8% to $28.2 Billion

Sea Change: Internet Drives Marketing-Services Gains; JWT Top U.S. Agency Brand; Dentsu Leads World Chart

Published: April 30, 2007

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Revenue for U.S. marketing-communications agencies jumped 8.8% to $28.2 billion in 2006, the strongest growth since ad spending began to rebound from recession in 2002.

The 107-page Agency Report Profile Yearbook and the Agency Family Tree poster can be downloaded below. Also below, find a link to the Agency Report index page where links to all related data and supplemental resources can be found.
Related Resources:
Download Agency Family Tree Poster
Download Agency Report Profiles Yearbook
Index to All Agency Report Charts, Rankings and Analyses
The hot growth came from marketing services, fueled by digital. Traditional ad agencies, grappling with a shift from old media, saw tepid growth.

Agency revenue from marketing services rocketed 13.1% to $15.1 billion, the strongest growth since the recession, according to the 63rd annual Advertising Age Agency Report. Agency revenue from traditional advertising and media rose just 4.2% to $13.1 billion, the weakest growth since 2003, the first full year of the advertising recovery.

In 2006, U.S. agencies collectively generated less than half of their revenue -- 46.4% -- from traditional advertising and media planning/buying, with the rest coming from a range of marketing services including digital/interactive, direct marketing, sales promotion, health care and PR. Marketing services grabbed 53.6% of U.S. marketing-communications agency revenue. That was up from 51.5% in 2005, the first year that marketing services topped advertising/media.

Impact of interactive
What's behind the change? No surprise: the internet. U.S. interactive-agency revenue rocketed 23.1%, driving the increase in marketing services. But digital is more than interactive shops; it's an integral part of marketing services from direct to promotion. "Interactive is huge," says Chris Weil, chairman-CEO of Momentum Worldwide, a promotions agency owned by Interpublic Group of Cos. "If anybody in marketing is not a big part of interactive, they won't be around much longer."

Traditional advertising certainly is under pressure. The 4.2% U.S. revenue growth for traditional advertising/media agencies roughly tracks with ad spending: U.S. measured spending on traditional media last year grew a soft 3.2%, according to TNS Media Intelligence data.

Among key points from the Agency Report:
Dentsu ranked as world's largest consolidated agency network, with 2006 revenue of nearly $2.5 billion. The consolidated-network ranking is new this year, and adds up the revenue of ad agencies and allied marketing-services ventures, excluding media, health care, market research and public relations.
WPP Group's JWT was the No. 1 U.S. agency with estimated revenue of $445 million from traditional advertising, followed closely by BBDO and McCann. The trio has always been near the top. In the first Agency Report, in 1945, the three shops ranked Nos. 1, 6 and 4. JWT's estimated 1944 U.S. revenue: $9 million, or $101 million after adjusting for inflation.
Omnicom's Rapp Collins Worldwide ranks as the top marketing-services agency.
AQuantive's Avenue A/Razorfish was the No. 1 interactive agency. AQuantive ranked as the ninth-largest marketing organization, becoming the first interactive operation to crack the top 10.
Omnicom, WPP, Interpublic and Publicis accounted for 52.6% of revenue for U.S. marketing-communications services. The Big Four's combined U.S. revenue was split evenly between advertising/media (50.8%) and marketing services (49.2%).
Reliance on traditional advertising varies widely by company. Omnicom last year generated just 42.8% of worldwide revenue from traditional advertising/media, lowest among the top four; Publicis drew 70% of revenue from traditional advertising/media, highest among the four.
The $1.3 billion purchase of Digitas by Publicis was the largest acquisition over the past year by a marketing organization, but it was far from the only digital deal. Since January 2006, the Big Four have bought, or made investments in, more than 20 interactive ventures.
The Big Four last year kept the same worldwide-revenue rankings in place since 2003: Omnicom, WPP, Interpublic and Publicis.

Interpublic was No. 1 as recently as 2000. It fell to second, behind Omnicom, in 2001, and third, behind WPP, in 2003. Interpublic could slump to No. 4 in 2007; Publicis, with its faster organic growth and the Digitas acquisition, is coming up fast. Interpublic's position will depend in part on how much progress it makes this year in its stated goal to achieve organic revenue growth "comparable to industry peers ... by 2008."

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Google gets in on 'Intel Inside' campaign

http://news.com.com/Google+gets+in+on+Intel+Inside+campaign/2100-1024_3-6178926.html

Story last modified Wed Apr 25 06:18:37 PDT 2007


Intel is injecting some of Google's famous ad magic into its "Intel Inside" campaign.

The world's largest microprocessor supplier and the most popular search engine were set to announce on Wednesday a co-marketing initiative that will allow makers and sellers of Intel-based laptops and other computers to easily buy keyword-based search advertising and online display ads for branding through Google's AdWords system.

Intel is introducing a virtual marketing storefront for its thousands of channel and reseller licensees that will provide a single online site for planning and creating ad campaigns such as placing print ads, ordering merchandise and services and customizing items with their company logo. Google is providing a suite of tools within that storefront that will help the users create and manage AdWords campaigns using things like pre-approved ad templates. The storefront and Google program will go into effect April 29.

Previously, Intel had a narrowly focused merchandising program for its "Intel Inside" licensees, allowing them to use marketing funds to buy products with the logo on them, such as pens, cups and mouse pads, said Mike Hoefflinger, general manager of Intel's global partner marketing unit. Now, Intel is broadening the marketing opportunities for licensees and eliminating the out-of-pocket expenses from marketing.

While small businesses may be comfortable buying online ads through Google's online automated ad auction system, the need for coordinating with Intel and other partners makes customized Google ad help necessary through the Intel marketing storefront, he said.

The "Intel Inside" program, established in 1991, has been hugely successful in improving the marketing profile of Intel's products which are buried inside the guts of computers and hidden from the general public.

Google recently switched from using AMD chips to Intel inside its servers. It's not surprising the companies would work together given that Paul Otellini, Intel's president and chief executive, has served on Google's board of directors since before he was promoted to the top spot at Intel in 2005.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

MediaTrust Announces the Next Generation of its Advario Contextual Ad Targeting Platform

Real Time, Relevant and Intelligent Display and In-Text Advertising Delivers Higher Performing Ads

SAN FRANCISCO – April 24, 2007 – ad:tech 2007 – MediaTrust, Inc. today announced availability of the next generation of Advario, an online ad platform powered by a contextual matching engine, that serves display and In-Text advertising for CPL, CPC, CPA and CPM campaigns. Advario’s patent pending technology delivers the most relevant and intelligent ads to end users, ensuring that advertisers, agencies and publishers receive the highest performing results from their advertising dollars and publishing inventory.

“Since ad relevance drives ad performance, advertisers are looking for ways to reach online audiences in the most relevant way possible. Advario makes ads personal, so that they inform and help the user, rather than interrupt,” said MediaTrust Chief Technology Officer, Joseph Matheny. “By analyzing overall site context rather than just single keywords, Advario delivers timely and intelligent ads that are more relevant and interesting to end users - and more profitable for our advertisers and publishers.”

Advario’s technological advantage stems from two of its patents. First, Advario leverages a unique process that allows publishers to easily include or exclude indexed page segments with an unprecedented level of granularity. Second, Advario uses a cutting-edge keyword and key phrase density engine that delivers higher relevance for contextual targeting. In addition, rather than using single keywords to determine relevance, Advario leverages its proprietary targeting methodology to recognize bundles of keywords called AdTopics. AdTopics match a pre-selected bundle of keywords with related topics within site content ensuring that the right ads arrive on the most relevant pages, in real-time.

Advario provides advertisers, agencies and publishers with the unprecedented ability to generate new and higher revenue streams on any type of Web page including those with dynamic and often unpredictable content such as blogs, forums, and social networking sites. Advario’s display and In-Text ad formats can be used together or individually to best meet the specific needs of a campaign.

• Advario Display Ads: Advario ads are keyed off AdTopics rather than single keywords. This makes Advario display ads more relevant to the end user so that they perform better for advertisers and publishers.

• Advario In-Text Ads: Users can activate contextual In-Text ads by scrolling over underlined keywords that reveal an ad and give them the option to click on the ad to learn more. Advario’s In-Text ads are user-initiated and therefore, do not interrupt the user during the online experience.

“With the continued adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and user-generated content, it has become more challenging for advertisers to deliver relevant ads to the right audience in the right environment,” said MediaTrust CEO, Peter Bordes. “Since online content is ever-changing, AdTopics’ “bundled” approach to contextual targeting will consistently outperform the single keyword targeting seen in most of today’s solutions.”

“As a beta customer, we are looking forward to an even higher dollar yield on our inventory in the near term. ROCKETinfo is excited to work with Advario to deliver only the most relevant, helpful and informative ads to our users,” said Phil Bode, CEO of ROCKETinfo. “We are pleased to offer our advertisers this new, high performing and customizable solution that increases the value of our online real estate.”

About MediaTrust
MediaTrust (www.mediatrust.com) is an innovative interactive media, advertising and technology company comprised of Advaliant, a performance affiliate marketing network, Advario, a proprietary contextual ad targeting platform, leading-edge media delivery technologies and the MediaTrust Integrated Solutions Group. MediaTrust offers a ‘one-stop-shop’ for technology and services across all online marketing channels including: affiliate and search marketing, contextual targeted advertising, lead generation, e-mail marketing, ad networks, mobile marketing, data management and Web publishing. MediaTrust’s experienced Integrated Solutions Group ensures that each campaign is uniquely customized for each advertiser and publisher.

MediaTrust’s properties work seamlessly together to deliver intelligent performance-based online marketing campaigns that create awareness, generate leads, drive sales and obtain customers.

Advaliant Campaign for PlayPhone Recognized as 2007 ad:tech Awards Finalist

Companies Recognized for Best Affiliate Marketing Campaign

SAN FRANCISCO – April 24, 2007 – ad:tech 2007 – MediaTrust, Inc. today announced that Advaliant, its next generation affiliate performance network, and PlayPhone, the leader in direct-to-consumer mobile content destinations, have been recognized as a finalist for “Best Affiliate Marketing Campaign” in the 2007 ad:tech Awards. Ad:tech San Francisco is taking place this week, April 24-26 at the Moscone Center.

PlayPhone approached Advaliant with the primary objective of increasing its user base by appealing to consumers using mobile handsets. In addition, PlayPhone wanted to build a trusted brand name loyalty among its target demographic. Advaliant created a custom campaign for PlayPhone that allows the company to market through various interactive affiliate channels including e-mail, search marketing and banner advertising.

PlayPhone has worked with Advaliant to build the most successful mobile content campaign on the Advaliant network. Since the campaign launched in July of 2006, PlayPhone has experienced an average 30 percent growth in revenues, and a 30 percent increase in real leads. In addition, PlayPhone has established exclusive arrangements with many of the top mobile content developers in order to provide consumers with compelling content that enhances their mobile phone experience. As a result, the PlayPhone brand is very strong and is perceived as new and fresh in the industry among gamers and music lovers.

“PlayPhone initially selected Advaliant for its in-depth knowledge of the mobile entertainment industry, its understanding of our targets and goals and its commitment to helping us achieve them,” said Kate Spivak, senior director of Online Marketing at PlayPhone. “I have rarely had the opportunity to work with such a trustworthy and dedicated team. We are excited to be recognized by ad:tech as a finalist for our campaign results to date, and we look forward to continued collaboration with Advaliant in the future.”

“Advaliant’s pay-for-performance business model helps companies such as PlayPhone to optimize marketing budgets,” said Jivan Manhas, President of Advaliant. “This industry recognition serves as further validation that we are delivering highly effective programs that result in quality lead generation, traffic and transactions for this growing industry leader.”

The 2007 ad:tech awards ceremony will take place at ad:tech San Francisco, on Wednesday, April 25. More than 130 judges have reviewed the submissions.

About MediaTrust
MediaTrust (www.mediatrust.com) is an innovative interactive media, advertising and technology company comprised of Advaliant, a performance affiliate marketing network, Advario, a proprietary contextual ad targeting platform, leading-edge media delivery technologies and the MediaTrust Integrated Solutions Group. MediaTrust offers a ‘one-stop-shop’ for technology and services across all online marketing channels including: affiliate and search marketing, contextual targeted advertising, lead generation, e-mail marketing, ad networks, mobile marketing, data management and Web publishing. MediaTrust’s experienced Integrated Solutions Group ensures that each campaign is uniquely customized for each advertiser and publisher.

MediaTrust’s properties work seamlessly together to deliver intelligent performance-based online marketing campaigns that create awareness, generate leads, drive sales and obtain customers.

MediaTrust Announces RSS Reader Widget

widgetQube Allows Advertisers to Leverage the Power of RSS Marketing

SAN FRANCISCO – April 24, 2007 – ad:tech 2007 – MediaTrust, Inc. today announced widgetQube, an interactive virtual desktop accessory that allows users to view news from Web sites and blogs without having to launch a browser.

For users, widgetQube allows easy access to news headlines and brief story summaries from the within the widget. Users can click out to the Web to read the full story or to collect more information. widgetQube is preloaded with a default set of categories and RSS feeds that cover a broad range of interests, and allows users to import personal RSS feeds from favorite Web sites and blogs and to organize them into custom categories.

For advertisers, widgetQube provides access to a well informed audience in an environment that is non-interruptive to their online activities. widgetQube leverages the Advario ad platform and enables advertisers to make use of the power of RSS marketing to reach users that are not actively browsing the Web. widgetQube has a limited number of advertisements available within each category, so ads are targeted, relevant and informative. Advertising on the widgetQube exposes key messages to multiple platforms, multiple operating systems and a multiple of advertising marketplaces.

“RSS is quickly becoming the ‘broadcast signal’ of our era. More and more applications are adopting RSS as a standard way of transmitting syndicated content,” said MediaTrust Chief Technology Officer, Joseph Matheny. “In addition, widgetQube provides advertisers with an additional way to reach users that prefer receiving a quick and efficient snapshot of news over the distraction of surfing the Web.”
Users running Google, Windows, Macintosh and Flash platforms can download the free RSS news headline widget at www.widgetqube.com.

About MediaTrust
MediaTrust (www.mediatrust.com) is an innovative interactive media, advertising and technology company comprised of Advaliant, a performance affiliate marketing network, Advario, a proprietary contextual ad targeting platform, leading-edge media delivery technologies and the MediaTrust Integrated Solutions Group. MediaTrust offers a ‘one-stop-shop’ for technology and services across all online marketing channels including: affiliate and search marketing, contextual targeted advertising, lead generation, e-mail marketing, ad networks, mobile marketing, data management and Web publishing. MediaTrust’s experienced Integrated Solutions Group ensures that each campaign is uniquely customized for each advertiser and publisher.

MediaTrust’s properties work seamlessly together to deliver intelligent performance-based online marketing campaigns that create awareness, generate leads, drive sales and obtain customers.

Portals Dominate Online Ad Take

APRIL 24, 2007

How Google affords all those PhDs.

Advertising is the main revenue driver for the top four portals, in growth if not in sheer dollars. Shrinking subscriber access revenues at AOL and MSN have increased pressure on these portals to monetize pages using ads.

Competition among Google, Yahoo!, AOL and MSN is intense, and they each take a large share of US ad revenues. eMarketer estimates that nearly $13 billion will go to just those four sites in 2007.

In fact, Google and Yahoo!'s ad revenue (excluding traffic acquisition costs) alone will account for over half of all US online ad spending in 2007.

Jupiter Research's "21st Century Portals: Thriving in the Google-MySpace Era" report offers a similar accounting of US ad spending dollars, with Google and Yahoo! combining to take 40%.

Revenue concentration is even more pronounced in paid search. As Google grows and Panama (Yahoo's search ad model) begins to deliver more customers for Yahoo!, about 90% of the format's 2007 US revenues will come from only two companies.

eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman says that success for Google and Yahoo! doesn't mean their competitors will disappear.

"Whether or not the top four portals remain as configured today is an open question," says Mr. Hallerman. "In particular, some see AOL and MSN—the two smallest ones—on relatively shaky ground. But even though AOL's total revenues are decreasing significantly year over year, its advertising revenue promises to make up for its loss of subscribers, at least in a few years."

Learn what makes the big portals tick. Read eMarketer's Portal Marketing: The Big Four report.

CPG Smacking Its Lips over Internet Advertising



APRIL 24, 2007

After getting a taste of online advertising, many consumer packaged goods marketers seem to like it.

Food and beverage advertisers cut spending in nearly every major media last year — except the Internet.

This year, eMarketer estimates this category will spend $288 million advertising online, a 36.6% increase over 2006.

Why has Internet advertising become a meat-and-potatoes buy for food and drink marketers?

"Because food and drink is becoming an online staple for consumers who are searching the Internet for healthy eating tips and recipes, as well as for products they see advertised in other media," says Lisa Phillips, eMarketer Senior Analyst and the author of the new CPG Online: Food & Beverages Party On report.

"Eat, drink and go online" is the message food and beverage companies are sending to US consumers, and they are following their own advice.

In fact, according to TNS Media Intelligence, the Internet was the only medium to see more than a small increase in food and beverage ad spending last year. While spending in newspapers tanked almost 25% and outdoor spending fell 9.5%, online advertising gained nearly 27%, to reach $183.4 million (and TNS does not include search advertising in its calculations).

CPG companies, however, do not spend as heavily on paid search advertising as many other categories do, preferring to focus their Internet campaigns on branding, sponsorships and direct response such as e-mail.

"In the CPG segment, purchase consideration hinges more on in-store sales and discount coupons," says Ms. Phillips, "so paid search is not as paramount as in other industries, such as automotive or financial services."

eMarketer estimates CPG companies devote only 15% to 20% of their online spending to paid search.

"The shifts in food and beverage marketers' media mix in 2006 mirror what is taking place in other industries," says Ms. Phillips. "Last year, traditional media such as television, newspapers, radio and outdoor all lost share of spending within food and beverage budgets, while magazines and the Internet gained share. Even as total spending in other media fell 1.8%, Internet advertising rose, from 1.6% of the total in 2005 to 2.1% last year."

As a category, however, food and beverage advertising did not make the list of the top 10 advertising categories in 2006. Data from TNS show that the personal care segment was the only CPG category to break into the top 10, ranked eighth in overall spending last year, up 1.1% to $5.7 billion.

To feast on more CPG and food and beverage figures, read the new eMarketer report CPG Online: Food & Beverages Party On today.


Sunday, April 22, 2007

A Picture of AdTopics


This is an image and post i found that describes how the Advario contextual targeting engine reads the density of the page and then targets the red areas for the most relevance.
Anjo Anjewierden posts the image to the left which described the topics found in his blog. The topics are mined automatically and the image essentially represents a graph of the topics where proximity describes relatedness between topics. The colours indicate how strongly related neighbouring terms. Thus, one could interpret this map as a presentation of the topical coherence in the blog. As red indicates strong relatedness, the fewer and larger the red areas are, the more focused the content of the blog.
To really understand the potential value of this type of visualization, it would be great to see a grid of, say, 100 blogs so that one could see if there were any clear patterns. One might see, for example, highly focused blogs as a single, large red blob with a fringe of green. Other blogs which are less topically focused might look like the example above.
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September 16, 2006 in blogosphere, text mining Comments (0) TrackBack (0)

Many Eyes: IBM's Collaborative/Social Visualization Site

Many Eyes: IBM's Collaborative/Social Visualization Site
Just as we are getting used to the innovation that Swivel represents in terms of socializing data analysis and visualization, IBM has announced Many Eyes. It has many of the same features as Swivel, in fact, the intention behind the site seems very similar.
I've not yet really explored the site, but I've seen a number of different visualization formats including maps, time series and tree maps.

O'Reilly Radar has more coverage including some discussion with the creators of the site:
You also asked if we see our site as "Swivel for visualization". That phrase isn't quite accurate (any more than Swivel is "Many Eyes for data" ;-). Both our site and Swivel are examples of a broader phenomenon, which we call "social data analysis," where playful, social exploration of data leads to serious analysis. At the same time the two sites fall on different ends of a spectrum. Swivel seems to have some neat data mining technology that finds correlations automatically. By contrast, we've placed our emphasis on the power of human visual intelligence to find patterns. My guess is that both approaches will be successful because social data analysis is a powerful idea.

Thanks to Emily Halverson for the heads up.
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January 23, 2007 in dataviz Comments (0) TrackBack (0)

Map: Welcome to the Blogosphere


Charting the network of jocks, gadget hounds, political junkies, and porn aficionadosby Stephen Ornes -->
The blogosphere is the most explosive social network you’ll never see. Recent studies suggest that nearly 60 million blogs exist online, and about 175,000 more crop up daily (that’s about 2 every second). Even though the vast majority of blogs are either abandoned or isolated, many bloggers like to link to other Web sites. These links allow analysts to track
trends in blogs and identify the most popular topics of data exchange. Social media expert Matthew Hurst recently collected link data for six weeks and produced this plot of the most active and interconnected parts of the blogosphere.
Blogosphere as social network (Click Image to Enlarge) Courtesy of Matthew Hurst/Neilsen Buzzmetrics


1 MR. POPULARITYOn the map, white dots represent individual blogs, sized according to number of links. Nearly 500,000 people visit the DailyKos every day, making it one of the world’s most popular blogs. A link from DailyKos is a guaranteed way of attracting Web traffic (and therefore advertising revenue), and as a result DailyKos has a strict link policy. Green links represent one-way links (that is, blog A links to blog B), and blue links indicate reciprocal links (blog B returns the favor).


2 THE GOSSIP OF GADGET HOUNDSThe bright spot here represents the popular site Boingboing, a “Directory of Wonderful Things” that links to oddly compelling online news from the fringes of the real world but mostly offers gossip about gadgets and all things high-tech.
3 SHOW ME YOUR FRIENDS This isolated, close-knit online community of bloggers uses
LiveJournal, an online host that primarily serves as a social networking site. This blogging island is just barely in touch with the rest of the blogworld.


4 I’LL SHOW YOU MINE. . . This blue blob represents a balanced sociopolitical discourse. The prevalence of blue in this area shows that most of these links are reciprocal, suggesting a sort of metadialogue between bloggers who hurl headlines at one another. The brightest light belongs to syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin.


5 NAH, JUST SHOW ME YOURSNo discussion of the blogosphere would be complete without a nod to online smut. This outlying island of blue represents the linked-up world of bloggers who traffic in the latest news and gossip from the world of pornography. Oh, yeah, and pictures.


6 LONELY JOCKSAlso on the outskirts is this group of sports enthusiasts, many of whom, unlike the lonely pornographers, have links back to the central hot spot of the blogosphere. “What you find often on the blogosphere is people on the outside pointing in to the middle,” Hurst says. “They’re on the outside looking in.”
tal:attributes="href python:topic[1]"
tal:content="python: 'Read More On:' + topic[0]">Read More On: Diabetes

-->

Friday, April 20, 2007

New book on Behavioral Targeting

New book on Behavioral Targeting

Rob Graham’s new book on Behavioral Targeting and online advertising has been distributed to OMMA, iMediaSummit and AdTech audiences as part of its introduction, and now you can own a copy as well..

Fishing From A Barrel takes an energetic and foundational look at how behavioral targeting is changing the face of advertising as we know it and introduces readers to the fundamentals of behavioral targeting technologies and how advertisers and publishers can use BT to achieve greater campaign and ROI results for their online advertising.

While still in its infancy, Behavioral Targeting is filling in many of the holes that have been part of the direct marketing landscape for over 100 years. Fishing From A Barrel brings readers on a journey that introduces them to concepts such as:

  • The future promise of Behavioral Targeting
  • Why Mass Marketing isn’t the best way to reach an audience
  • How to target and market to ‘individuals’
  • How to plan for and create highly targeting ad campaigns
  • How publishers are using BT to turn a huge profit
  • What you need to know about ‘Customerization’
  • How new targeting data goes well beyond demography
  • Why contextual targeting often falls short
  • Understanding and using ad networks
  • Using BT with traditional media channels
  • How to collect and use relevant web analytics
  • Understanding new definitions of Reach, Acquisition and Conversion
  • How to create targeted audience segments
  • The importance of privacy to consumers
  • What makes consumers consume?
  • Meeting consumer needs and expectations with every campaign
  • The Foundational Communications Model
  • Communicating Interactively
  • Who’s who in Behavioral Targeting
  • BUY THE BOOK HERE

Getting Ads to the Right Eyeballs (Page 4 of 4)

BEHAVIORAL MARKETING
Published: April 20, 2007
Getting Ads to the Right Eyeballs (Page 4 of 4)
The challenges facing BT

Return to Page 3

To paraphrase Graham, there is an elephant in the room when it comes to BT, namely a lack of standardization across solutions. According to Graham, this is no small obstacle, as he writes, "It could prevent BT from gaining the foothold it really needs to complete its paradigm shift."

As Graham sees it, the landscape of BT solutions is a mixed bag of practices because providers employ different approaches to reach consumers. While Graham concedes that the spirit of experimentation in that area will likely pay dividends in terms of innovation, it is something of a drawback for advertisers because running a campaign with a single vendor won't put the message in front of all potential buyers.

For Graham, there is no easy fix for the standardization problem. Although he points out that media exchange solutions and the establishment of standards by a governing body such as the IAB should go a long way toward allowing BT to reach its full potential.

A primer on privacy
At some point in a conversation about BT, someone will likely use the S-word, according to Graham: spying. "There's no way to sugar coat this," Graham writes. "In order to learn more about individual consumers, marketers have to resort to 'spying.'"

While Graham details the some of the legal and business concerns those employing BT should have when it comes to issues of privacy, he makes the point that advertisers and publishers who use BT need to demonstrate to consumers that the practice benefits all parties involved.

"Benefit is the key word here," Graham writes. "As consumers, we demand to know 'what's in it for me' before taking any action. Relevancy is king. If I'm going to give you something, I expect to get something in return."

Beyond BT, the human element
While BT may look like a numbers-heavy discipline, the truth of the matter is that it's really more of a human art. After all, as Graham explains, "it's difficult to understand the parameters of BT without first understanding the realm of human behavior." For that reason alone, Graham delivers some basics on studies in human behavior as they relate to ad campaigns.

According to Graham, the relevance of an ad, whether it's served up via BT or otherwise, comes down to how the ad plays to our core emotions. Whether the ad meshes with our self-described identity, or whether it conflicts with how we see ourselves, will also determine whether a given message can break through the noise of everyday life.

Resources
While "Fishing From a Barrel" is meant to serve as a roadmap for a BT campaign, as well as a strong argument for BT in general, Graham rightly assumes that his readers may not be quite as far along in adopting BT as he would hope. For that reason, Graham concludes his book with a useful "Resource Pack," which contains contact information for various firms offering BT solutions, and better still for the novice reader, brief, easily digested descriptions of what those companies do.

"Fishing From a Barrel" is available from LearningCraft.

Michael Estrin is the associate editor at iMedia Connection. Read full bio.

Getting Ads to the Right Eyeballs (Page 3 of 4)

BEHAVIORAL MARKETING
Published: April 20, 2007
Getting Ads to the Right Eyeballs (Page 3 of 4)

Five ways to use BT

Return to Page 2

As Graham is quick to observe, BT isn't a what, but a how. In "Fishing From a Barrel," he isolates five ways of approaching BT, making clear that a specific marketing goal needs to be set so that the marketer can gauge the campaign's effectiveness.

"By first identifying the specific actions consumers need to take, marketers can create ways to capture and measure data to determine if those goals are being met," Graham writes.

1) Publisher solutions
According to Graham, more than 90 percent of advertisers using BT use some type of publisher-based BT solution. Publisher solutions use identifying characteristics of site visitors, applying those understandings to current visitors in order to serve them relevant ads.

"The main advantage for sites that use behavioral tracking capabilities is that it allows them to be defined within ad networks as a specific audience destination," Graham writes.

2) Ad Network Solutions
Ad networks are a collection of sites representing an expanded range of places where advertisers can run ads. But unlike a single publisher, ad networks offer an added wrinkle to BT, according to Graham.

"Unlike a single site, ad networks can collect consumer data on hundreds of sites and, in some cases, track individual consumers as they travel between sites on the same network," Graham writes.

3) Adware Solutions
Adware solutions are an opt-in way for advertisers to reach consumers directly, usually by giving the consumer some free software or online tools in exchange for their participation. But as Graham points out, advertisers using adware solutions have felt the heat recently from lawsuits seeking to conflate adware with spyware. While a good tool, Graham says he believes only time will tell if it is to be a viable option for BT.

4) Ad Optimization
Ad optimization is considered an offshoot of ad serving. Ad optimization companies typically use intelligent ad serving technologies to interface with a publisher and an ad serving engine.

"The greatest advantage of this process is that targeted consumers can be reached with tier one targeted ads, while visiting pages normally cater to second and third tier inventory," Graham writes.

5) Rich Media Advertising Solutions
To be fair, Graham says he is a "huge fan of rich media solutions," having designed more than 500 rich media ad units in his career.

"To me, the greatest benefit that rich media ads offer advertisers is the ability to help drive the consumer's behavior toward a specific marketing goal," Graham writes.

Campaigns typically involve gathering information such as product preferences, email addresses or ZIP codes. The data is then collected within the ad unit and fed into a back-end database.

The difficulty, according to Graham, is synchronizing the data gathered from an interactive ad with the appropriate web analytics data.

"By tying all the collected campaign data together, it is my expectation that rich media and behavioral targeting will become a juggernaut in the land of online advertising," Graham writes.

Getting Ads to the Right Eyeballs (Page 2 of 4)

BEHAVIORAL MARKETING
Published: April 20, 2007
Getting Ads to the Right Eyeballs (Page 2 of 4)

Data matters, a lot

Return to Page 1

As Graham says, "It all starts with data." Publishers can collect two kinds of data to learn more about their customers. Declared data represents information consumers willingly disclose about themselves, while observed data is information compiled and collected based on how consumers use websites. Once the data is gathered, the challenge, according to Graham, is to make sense of it.

For Graham, the twin-tools of cookies and analytics solutions capable of observing time spent online, and repeat visits and which pages generate the most traffic, are more than just ways to track consumers. As Graham sees it, the online ad experience is a dialogue between consumer and publisher, wherein the publisher (if he is listening) can adjust his business on the fly to meet the needs of a savvy user.

Though Graham points out the use of several BT models, the basic process is quite simple. Publishers create page tags for targeted webpages that are triggered upon a visitor's arrival. The data is then collected and analyzed. Visitors are next grouped according to similar patterns observed while on the site or within the ad network. The groups are then refined into groups of clearly defined audiences. Publishers can then sell advertisers access to highly-targeted audience groups.

While the process may sound basic, for Graham it is revolutionary.

"For the first time in the history of marketing, the ability to reach individuals based on their needs, interests, desires and sudden urges is within reach of advertisers," he writes.

Next: Five ways to use BT

Getting Ads to the Right Eyeballs

Getting Ads to the Right Eyeballs

"Fishing From a Barrel" author Rob Graham explains how to put the right ads in front of the right people.

In "Fishing From a Barrel" author and professor Rob Graham has one message for his readers: Know your customers.

The book, then, to paraphrase Graham, is an attempt to draw a roadmap that aids online advertisers and publishers in understanding the process of planning behaviorally targeted (BT) ad initiatives.

The target
"To be effective in the new world, advertisers have to stop targeting 'us' and start targeting 'me,'" Graham writes. The beauty of BT, Graham argues, is that it allows publishers and advertisers to learn more about their customers not as group, but as individuals.

Rather, than sifting through mountains of data meant to encapsulate the buying patterns of groups of people, Graham sees BT as a way to look into the minds of a single, potential customer.

"By recognizing and tracking the surfing behaviors of individual site visitors, publishers are able to plot patterns of behavior that identify specific areas of interest, current needs and buying intention," Graham writes.

While it is the publishers who must set up their websites to gather information, much the same way a retail store would instruct a clerk to observe a customer's in-store behavior, it is both advertisers and publishers who gain from BT, according to Graham.

In a hypothetical example featuring "Jerry," a busy consumer in the market for mountain biking vacations, Graham explains how tracking each visit made by the consumer to a relevant website, and subsequently serving ads targeted to where Jerry is in the buying cycle, yields positive results for publishers, advertisers and consumers.

By knowing precisely where Jerry was in the buying cycle, the publisher can sell ads at a premium because they cater to the right buyer. And by putting ads in front of a likely buyer, the advertiser wins because relevant ads are better able to convert. As an added benefit, Graham points out that Jerry will benefit because relevant ads help him save time finding what he wants, thus building a stronger relationship between advertiser and consumer.

Next: Data matters, a lot

The Unstoppable Surge of Search Advertising

APRIL 20, 2007

There are two giants in the space, and they are getting bigger!
Saying that search engine marketing is a highly concentrated industry is an understatement.

Looking at the numbers, according to comScore, US Internet users performed 75.8% of their January 2007 searches on Google or Yahoo!, and Nielsen//NetRatings put the combined total at 76.4%.

"In fact, over 90% of US paid search ad spending will go to the two search giants in 2007," says eMarketer Senior Analyst David Hallerman, author of the new Search Marketing: Counting Dollars and Clicks report. "One side effect of this degree of concentration is that it can often make marketing on second-tier search engines often a better value for the money — less competition for keywords means that advertisers get broader reach for fewer ad dollars."

Paid search makes up the largest slice of the US online advertising market, as it has since 2003.

"The point to note, however," says Mr. Hallerman, "Is that with its 42.5% contribution to the online total in 2007, according to eMarketer's estimates, paid search's spending share has remained fairly level at the 40%-plus plateau since early in the decade."

Projections through 2011 indicate a similar, although no greater, dominance.

"Of course, paid search's relatively flat share growth obscures the enormous sums going to this advertising format, along with Internet advertising as a whole," says Mr. Hallerman. "US spending on search advertising will rise by more than $3.2 billion from 2006 to 2008 alone."

Paid search is currently the key driver of US online advertising, and spending on paid search in 2008 will exceed the $9.6 billion that was spent on all online advertising in 2004.

There are many reasons to expect even more paid search spending.

According to the annual "The State of Search Engine Marketing" study from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), 44% of the companies now advertising on search engines began advertising during the past two years. These companies are new to the game, and many are likely to boost budgets as they measure the effects of search ads on their marketing.

In addition, as marketers grow familiar with advertising on search engines, they buy more keywords. As they buy more keywords, competition leads to higher prices. And higher prices leads to overall spending increases.

"The SEMPO research shows 36% of advertisers saying search marketing programs get their budgets newly allocated funds, rather than shifts away from existing programs," says Mr. Hallerman. "Again, new money continues to enter the arena."

For a look ahead at more of the changes coming to paid search, read the new eMarketer Search Marketing: Counting Dollars and Clicks report today.

Online B2C Lead Gen Bests Offline

Almost half of marketers - some 47 percent - say their businesses are not effectively exploiting online lead generation as a way of growing their B2C business, according to a survey of internet marketers by E-consultancy and Clash-Media.
Four out of five online marketers (82 percent) see online lead generation as a growth area, and 64 percent of online marketers see it as its own distinct area of online marketing. But only 44 percent of B2C marketers say that their organizations are effectively exploiting online lead generation as a way of increasing revenue.
The study also found that three-quarters of respondents working for multi-channel organizations (74 percent) say their companies are generating leads online with the intention of converting them offline.
The report is based on the findings of a survey of more than 400 marketers carried out in January and February 2007.
"The research found that online methods are deemed to be more effective than offline methods when it comes to generating leads in the B2C context," said Linus Gregoriadis, E-consultancy's head of research. "There are huge opportunities… irrespective of whether these are eventually converted online or offline, for example in stores or by telephone."
Key findings of the research include the following:
Press (newspapers and magazines) is the method of offline lead generation most commonly used to generate consumer leads (61% of respondents), followed by direct mail/postal data (51%).
The online methods most likely to be used by company respondents to generate leads are natural search (78% of respondents), paid search (72%) and email marketing via in-house lists (72%).
The most effective methods of generating leads are all online. More than half of company respondents (52%) said that paid search was "very effective" while almost as many (48%) said that natural search was very effective.
Email Marketing via in house lists, affiliate marketing, shopping comparison sites, viral marketing and acquiring leads from online aggregators are deemed very effective by 38%, 34%, 26%, 25%, and 25% of company respondents, respectively.
Paid search gets the biggest share of online lead generation budget allocation (28%).
60% of company respondents say they are either "excellent" (11%), "good" (22%) or "quite good" (27%) at measuring the effectiveness of their online lead generation activity. However, 27% say they are "average" and a further 8% saying they are "poor."
The difficulties associated with measuring the effectiveness of online lead generation activity generally fall into three categories: (1) difficulty of tracking leads through to conversion in a multi-channel environment;(2) lack of technology or poor technology for online tracking; and (3) lack of resources.
Only 16% of company respondents say they buy lists of targeted prospects from online aggregators; 77% of company respondents say they are not using online lead aggregators. Moreover, one-fifth of respondents either "haven't come across this" (12%) or "don't understand how it works" (8%), suggesting that there is an opportunity for aggregators to educate prospective clients about this type of activity. A further 8% said they lacked the time to research this activity.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Google gets its groove back

World's top search engine reports strong increase in sales and profits that beat expectations, stock soars

By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com editor at large
April 19 2007: 5:29 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Google Inc. said Thursday that profits soared nearly 70 percent in the first quarter on the back of solid sales growth, allowing the world's No. 1 search engine to keep its dominant spot in the red-hot online advertising business.

Shares of Google (Charts, Fortune 500) gained nearly 3 percent after-hours following a 1 percent decline in regular trading on Nasdaq. Most top Internet stocks fell Thursday despite optimism about Google's results and healthy earnings from online auction leader eBay (Charts, Fortune 500) on Wednesday.

Google reported revenue of $3.66 billion, up 63 percent from a year earlier. After backing out advertising sales that Google shares with affiliates, the company reported revenue of $2.53 billion, better than Wall Street's consensus estimate of $2.49 billion and up 66 percent from $1.53 billion last year.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's net income surged 69 percent from the same period last year to $1 billion, or $3.18 a share. Excluding stock-based compensation as well as a tax benefit and other items, the company reported a profit of $3.68 a share, ahead of the $3.30 a share that analysts were expecting on this basis.

Google's first-quarter results come two days after top rival Yahoo! (Charts, Fortune 500) posted disappointing first-quarter earnings and issued weaker-than-forecast sales guidance for the second quarter, news that caused Yahoo's stock to plunge 12 percent Wednesday and another 3 percent Thursday.

Shares of Google have underperformed Yahoo this year as investors bet that Yahoo was going to gain market share thanks to its new search platform, called Project Panama, which is said to be leading to more relevant search results on Yahoo.

But earlier this week, research from comScore showed that Google widened its market share lead in search over Yahoo and smaller competitors such as Microsoft's (Charts, Fortune 500) MSN and IAC's (Charts, Fortune 500) Ask.com.

In addition to cementing its leading position in search, analysts have speculated that Google may also become a more significant player in other areas of advertising. The company acquired popular online video site YouTube last year.

And in a flurry of activity this month, Google agreed to buy DoubleClick, a firm that specializes in placing online banner ads, last week for $3.1 billion, and also announced new ad-selling partnerships with radio station owner Clear Channel Communications (Charts, Fortune 500) and EchoStar (Charts, Fortune 500), which operates the DISH satellite TV network.

"The global growth of our core search and ads business and our focus on building our partnerships drove our strong results in the quarter," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a statement. "We continued to expand our worldwide footprint, adding important new partners and growing our platform to increase our ability to deliver targeted and measurable ads."

During the quarter, Google reported revenue from outside the U.S. nearly doubled from the same period last year and accounted for 47 percent of the company's total revenue.

Speaking during a conference call with analysts Thursday afternoon, Schmidt said Google was "ecstatic" about the company's results but warned investors that the second quarter and third quarter, which encompass the summer months, tend to be seasonally slower for Internet traffic and online advertising.

Google does not give sales or earnings guidance. Analysts currently expect the company to report revenue, excluding the ad sales shared with partners, of $2.63 billion in the second quarter, up 58 percent from last year.

Earnings, backing out charges and tax gains, are forecast to come in at $3.42 a share, a 37 percent increase from the second quarter of 2006.

Schmidt added during the call that Google's strength is mainly coming from its core search business but he indicated that other segments, such as YouTube, were also performing well.

Schmidt did not discuss, nor was he specifically asked about, a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Google and YouTube by media conglomerate Viacom last month. But Schmidt did say Google is working on a tool that will let media companies automate the process of asking Google and YouTube to remove copyrighted content.

Google indicated yet again, as it has on previous earnings calls, that it plans to spend aggressively on building its business.

Chief financial officer George Reyes said Google spent nearly $600 million on things like servers, data centers and networking equipment in the first quarter.

Google is also spending heavily on hiring new employees. The company said it finished the first quarter with 12,238 full-time employees, up from 10,674 full time employees at the end of 2006.

During the conference call, Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto asked Google if the company thought it was nearing a point where it had enough employees and whether it was worried that revenue per employee was actually declining as Google's headcount increased.

Schmidt brushed off those concerns and said Google does not really look at its revenue in this manner. He added that Google was more focused on creating new products that would get more users to come to Google, even though the new features may not directly lead to increased revenue in the short term.

Google finished the quarter with $11.9 billion in cash, up from $11.2 billion at the end of 2006.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

MediaTrust’s Company Beliefs

MediaTrust’s Company Beliefs

Customers are partners, and strong business relationships are built by earning a partner’s trust.

Business relationships last for years, not days.


Information transparency is not optional. Every customer deserves full disclosure at all times.

A media firm’s obligation to perform: To deliver what they say, when they say it with no hidden costs.


Relationships are founded on handshakes and aligned activity toward a profitable end.

Trust isn’t granted, it’s earned over time by being truthful to one’s word.


Each partnership is unique, and requires a customized solution designed to address specific business needs.

New Online Advertising Company Adify Debuts

Flycast founders reunite, recruit powerful, diverse management team to tackle new problems faced by today's more sophisticated online publishers.

San Bruno, Calif., August 8, 2006 - Adify Corporation today unveiled an Internet advertising platform that brings new levels of visibility, control and economic benefits to both online advertisers and publishers. Adify offers publishers new ways to grow their business by increasing their share of self-service advertising, and by participating in tightly-focused vertical networks, while delivering marketers an easy way to find and buy highly-targeted advertising online.

Adify is the latest advertising solutions company from co-founders Larry Braitman and Richard Thompson. In 1996, they formed Flycast Communications, which revolutionized online marketing by creating the first blind advertising network to service the "long tail” of Internet websites. By optimizing campaigns across thousands of websites, Flycast created a new category that continues to dominate Internet advertising today.
Despite the popularity and growth of online ad networks, and their utility as a means to monetize publishers' unsold ad space, they offer advertisers very limited control over the placement of their ads. Publishers, in turn, have minimal control over the ads appearing on their sites, and no direct relationship with their customers – the advertisers. These blind networks fail to meet the needs of advertisers that are selective about the sites on which their ads run, and inhibit the ability of publishers to create unique value around their content, audience and brand.

To overcome these drawbacks, Adify was created to enable and optimize direct, open transactions between advertisers and publishers in a context where the power, control and choice is placed in their hands, rather than in the hands of a network gatekeeper.
Adify provides a hosted, publisher-branded advertising storefront, which can be leveraged to sell text, image and rich media advertising inventory. The publisher sets the pricing and terms (CPM, CPC, sponsorship) of the ad space, and controls the display and placement of the ads. Adify provides all of the backend functionality required to execute the transaction, including ad management, tracking, reporting, billing and payment.
"Since we founded Flycast 10 years ago, online marketers and publishers have grown much more sophisticated, and are demanding greater direct control over their key advertising relationships,” said Adify co-founder and CEO Larry Braitman. "Adify addresses these emerging needs by enabling publishers to package, price and merchandize their online advertising space in a manner that enhances their unique brand and content."
Creating New Vertical Networks

In addition to enabling publishers to sell their ad space directly to advertisers, Adify has developed several vertically-oriented niche networks that address growing demand from advertisers who want to reach highly-targeted online communities.
In early July, Adify introduced Clip-Ins, a first-of-its-kind online advertising network specifically dedicated to the needs of advertisers and publishers in the cycling community. Powered by the Adify platform, Clip-Ins creates a new media option for the cycling industry, offers advertisers access to cycling publishers of all sizes, and delivers the broadest segment of cycling enthusiasts online. Adify also recently launched the Top Dog Network, an advertising community that brings together dog enthusiasts for both publishers and marketers.
"My mission is to provide the Internet's most comprehensive and useful source of information on Portland's dynamic bike scene, and as owner and operator, I'm always looking for ways to get more done in less time while improving the quality and viability of the site,” said Jonathan Maus, owner of BikePortland.org, an Adify publisher and member of the Clip-Ins Network. "Through Clip-Ins, I was able to set up a self-service storefront which included all the administrative tools required to accept advertising. In a matter of days, I was generating revenue from advertisers of all shapes and sizes without hiring an advertising sales force. Now, I can continue to focus on creating great content for the Portland cycling community knowing that I have a sustainable, long-term advertising solution in place."

Adify helps publishers maximize the long-term value of their sites. By selling directly to advertisers, publishers create stronger brands while taking more control over advertising relationships. Other ways that Adify helps publishers improve their businesses include:

  • Publisher-friendly commission structure increases income potential over comparable online advertising solutions;

  • Branded, self-service storefront enables relationships with new advertisers who prefer to buy online using self-service tools, and automates the ad sales process;

  • Hosted billing, ad serving, tracking, reporting, collecting and payment allows publishers to focus on developing and promoting great content;

  • Ability to set the price and terms of ad space sold through the storefront increases flexibility and control;

  • Customized storefront puts merchandising, ad space creation, advertiser approval and payment options in the publisher's hands; and

  • Ability to sell text, image and rich media advertising; on a sponsorship, CPM or CPC basis, improves flexibility.


Adify solutions also deliver new benefits to online marketers, including:


  • Easy access to highly targeted advertising opportunities;

  • Access new publishers of all sizes that are already connected to key target markets;

  • Streamlined advertising options directly on smaller sites, blogs and newsletters;

  • Increased control of the price and type of media buy;

  • Ability to purchase advertising on multiple sites in a single buy or directly on individual sites; and Unmatched visibility and control over online ad placements.

Adify - Powering Brand Networks for the Global Media 1,000

Adify - Powering Brand Networks for the Global Media 1,000: "
Adify powers the next generation of focused, brand-driven advertising networks. Global Media 1,000 partners such as Time Warner, The Washington Post Company, Reed Business Information, NBC Universal, The Guardian Group, RP Online, and Comcast Corporation are able to extend their brands, increase their reach and grow their revenue by using Adify to aggregate niche, high-quality content sites and create customized, vertical ad networks.
Our unique Build Your Own Network™ solution offers a suite of interlocking tools and services, designed to support the entire process of conceiving, building, managing and supporting an ad network created completely under your brand.
Adify’s technology platform supports everything you’ll need to build and manage your network, from creating custom publisher applications and site lists to ad serving, campaign optimization, performance analytics, billing and payments.

Today Adify supports over 30 leading vertical ad networks. We can help you enhance your brand, extend your reach, and recruit the publishers you need to drive new revenue opportunities. In addition to technical implementation and back office services, Adify’s professional services team provides strategic consulting, market mapping, sales training, and marketing support.

Advertisers and publishers: please contact Adify to learn more about our category-leading vertical networks, or about working with the Adify Media Solutions team.
Adify’s management team has over 40 years of combined online media experience from revolutionary companies like Flycast Network, Excite, and eBay. The company is backed by blue chip venture firms Venrock Associates and U.S. Venture Partners."

Google Fiddles with AdWords' Macro-Economics; Allows Bid Averaging · MarketingVOX

Google Fiddles with AdWords' Macro-Economics; Allows Bid Averaging · MarketingVOX: "Google Fiddles with AdWords' Macro-Economics; Allows Bid Averaging
Google added a new feature to its AdWords platform that lets advertisers set an average budget, reports ClickZ.

The new tool will free advertisers up from, it's hoped, having to login repeatedly to adjust their campaigns in order to maintain an average spending amount. This allows users to define preferred CPM and CPC amounts, which Google's system will then automatically target.
Since the primary strategy to keep spending to an average rate is currently under-bidding on keywords, this may actually prove a macro-economic play by Google to increase the average bids for those campaigns with the most positive returns.
The utility might not be a good fit for all advertisers, especially those who deem it worth their while to pay more for specific keywords. "

MediaPost Publications - NBCU, GE To Invest $250 Mil. In Media Companies - 04/18/2007

MediaPost Publications - NBCU, GE To Invest $250 Mil. In Media Companies - 04/18/2007: "NBCU, GE To Invest $250 Mil. In Media Companies
Wednesday, Apr 18, 2007 8:30 AM ET
NBC UNIVERSAL AND GE COMMERCIAL Finance's Media, Communications & Entertainment unit launched a $250 million equity fund to invest in media and technology companies that can partner with NBC. The first investment is a $3 million stake in Adify, an online-ad startup. Other investments will be in wireless and digital content. "

Why Someone Would Leave Google

Why Someone Would Leave Google

Stephen-Bradford's business developer tells us why superstars at Google or other online mega brands would leave for new opportunities and offers advice on retention.
AdAge recently interviewed our executive search firm about Patrick Keane leaving Google for CBS. We told the publication that whether it's from a big or small company, good people are constantly being courted with new opportunities and it's easy for them to be seduced by the promise of being able to help a company cross another hurdle.
In a previous article, I wrote about the three reasons why employees leave: fun, learning and money. As the candidate market tightens, the reasons haven't changed, but allow me to make them more relevant by giving you fresh examples.

Fun Your offices don't need to be filled with foosball machines, video game rooms or a rock-climbing wall to be considered fun. However, your people need to feel supported, appreciated and like a member of the family. Your company should have retreats and conduct team building exercises. It should celebrate good news such as new business wins and other significant milestones. Even providing perks that might appear petty like free snacks and office parties can offer substantial joy to your staff. If you want a happy culture, be sure that you and your managers are doing what's necessary to set the tone.

Learning The most successful people are those who never stop learning and crave new challenges. Last year employees left established web players such as Yahoo! and AOL for acquisition or IPO targets such as Facebook and YouTube. Patrick Keane's departure proves that Google isn't safe from losing its top players, either.
Talented executives want to make a difference. They crave new challenges. Often they are seeking the opportunity to create a new business model. With the integration of video into online ads and the fusion of traditional advertising styles with radical new ways of reaching people in new media, the best employees not only want to put the pieces of the online integration puzzle together, they want to enhance the end picture, taking advertising options to the next level.
If your organization does not have the flexibility to let employees re-write the landscape, then consider smaller options. Even moving a person to another project can re-energize him and elicit fresh ideas to keep the person engaged.

Money Some may not believe this, but money is the slightest cause of employee vulnerability. Sure, a person may end up earning more at their new position, but it's usually not why they started looking. Our firm recently placed a sales superstar from a top site into a position with a start up. The candidate took a reduced base salary but is capable of making greater commission in addition to equity. However, fun and the challenge of leading something new was the key motivator in this person's decision to move.

YHOO traded down big in after-hours

YHOO traded down big in after-hours; overall Q and outlook light. Details from the call…
• YHOO saying Panama having early success in the US…."After we introduced the new ranking algorithm on February 5, we saw expected improvements in the run rate year over year of click-through rates versus how they were tracking in January"
• They say they are well positioned to launch Panama in int'l markets. YHOO has launched Panama to select group of Japanese clients yesterday. Remaining int'l markets will be rolled out in the months ahead, starting w/Korea and Europe later this Q.
• They are expanding EBAY relationship - "we're announcing that we've expanded our relationship with eBay, with the introduction of the Yahoo! PayPal checkout program"
• Advertisement activity among lenders and aggregators across our network remains solid. Says they have limited exposure to subprime issues.
• They end w/$3.1B cash; they say their investments (Yahoo Japan, Ali Baba, etc) worth $3.6B in aggregate, or >$5.75/shr


YHOO - A. Quadrani and B. Peck comment after earnings; results within guidance but missed St's raised expectations; Q2 outlook disappoints and so does the unchanged full year outlook; cutting our ests; cutting our PT from $35 to $34; reit Outperform. We are reducing our 2Q07 revenues and GAAP EPS to $1.253B and $0.11 from $1.295B and $0.13, resp. Our full year revenues and GAAP EPS reduces to $5.256B and $0.50 from $5.345B and $0.54. Our estimate changes reflect our view that branded advertising will continue to face pricing pressure, offset by improved search monetization. YoY growth for all the revenues segments (O&O, Branded Ad, Search and total Marketing Services) decelerated in 1Q07 compared to 4Q06.