AdBrite, Opens Platform Advertising Network

With AOL having launched PubAccess and a number of other advertising networks exploring the multiple ways in which the industry could better deliver targeted ads, there’s a noticeable occurrence that’s becoming increasingly difficult to avoid: the developments in the marketplace are moving pretty fast. From video ads to widget ads, a lot of brands, advertising networks, content owners and publishers are still feeling out the best way in which to monetize sites and audiences.

While most ad networks offer one way or another to target ads across websites, what would you think about having several methods available within a single ad network? AdBrite is becoming that single ad network, with the revelation of its Open Targeting Exchange (OTX).

It’s an open platform approach that other advertising technologies can build upon. That means that a starting ad network can use AdBrite’s OTX in order to use one or many of the targeting methods it already can deploy, and building a company from there. Targeting options include geographic, demographic, retargeting, contextual and behavioral. And as this OTX is providing access to AdBrite’s platform, other companies can leverage AdBrite’s existing network of publishers and advertisers as well. Is this the best of both worlds?

AdBrite is hoping to compete, on some level, with the larger ad networks like Google and Yahoo–at least by putting on the pressure with its open platform strategy. AdBrite expects that the ability to build on its existing tools will help spur some innovation in attempts to discover the best approach to targeted ads.

Yahoo Reveals Details of Its New Ad Sales System

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo is beginning to pull the wraps off an online advertising system that the company said would help it and its partners drive sales of graphical and other premium ads.

Yahoo said the system, called AMP and still months away from being ready, would greatly simplify the task of selling online ads, allowing Yahoo’s publishing partners, for instance, to place ads on their own sites as well as on Yahoo and on the sites of other publishers in the company’s growing network. Advertisers will be able to focus those ads by demographic profile, geography and online behavior, the company said.

Yahoo is developing the system as other Internet giants, including Google, Microsoft and AOL, are all stepping up their efforts to become sellers and brokers of all types of ads on sites across the Web. Many analysts expect Google, which recently completed its acquisition of the ad-serving specialist DoubleClick, to begin making inroads into the market for graphical ads online, which Yahoo dominates.

“This gives Yahoo a little leadership in vision,” said Rachel Happe, an analyst with IDC, a consulting firm. But Ms. Happe noted that Yahoo’s last big advertising project, a platform known as Panama and intended to reach people searching the Internet, was plagued by lengthy delays. She said it would be “problematic” for Yahoo if it were not able to deliver AMP on time.

Yahoo executives first discussed the new system publicly in February at an Interactive Advertising Bureau meeting, calling it the Advertiser and Publisher Exchange. Yahoo executives, trying to convince shareholders that a bid by Microsoft to acquire the company underestimated Yahoo’s worth, said the new system would help Yahoo outpace the growth of the online graphical advertising market over the next three years.

Yahoo has begun showing the system to publishers in its newspaper consortium, which includes hundreds of daily and weekly newspapers. Those newspapers are slated to become the first users of AMP, which Yahoo expects to begin rolling out in the late summer or in the fall. The New York Times Company’s Regional Media Group, which includes 15 newspapers, is a member of the consortium.

“Yahoo clearly has put a full-court press on developing this platform,” said George B. Irish, president of Hearst Newspapers, which owns 12 dailies that are part of the Yahoo consortium.

“I think it’s going to be very important for us,” said William Dean Singleton, chief executive of MediaNews Group, which operates 57 daily newspapers in 12 states. “Giving us the ability to sell targeted online advertising will allow us, I think, to charge more for advertising online.”

Hilary Schneider, Yahoo’s executive vice president for global partner solutions, said that AMP was “about opening Yahoo’s capabilities to the entire Web.”

With AMP, a newspaper ad sales representative working with an advertiser, like a car dealer, would be able to easily see the ad space available on not only the newspaper’s site but also Yahoo and other Web publishers’ sites. The sales person could slice that inventory by demographic profile to, for instance, aim ads for a new hybrid S.U.V. to females of a specific income and age group. The system will help streamline a manual and time-consuming effort, Ms. Schneider said.

The system, which was built out of a combination of technologies developed at Yahoo and others Yahoo obtained when it bought Right Media, BlueLithium and other companies, will also serve ads directly to publishers’ sites and allow marketers to monitor their performance.

AMP’s targeting capabilities could, in theory, help Yahoo and others sell ads at higher prices, said Barry Parr, an analyst with Jupiter Research. But Mr. Parr noted that Yahoo has had difficulty focusing ads effectively on its own site and that AMP’s effectiveness remained to be proved.

5 Tips on Social Media Advertising

A big part of my responsibilities at TopRank involve the wonderful world of social media. As with search marketing, there is both an “organic” and an advertising component to marketing on social networks, news and media sharing sites.
As social media usage increases month over month, marketers have found a way to use these popular sites as channels for promotion. Anyone can join the PINK Victoria’s Secret group on Facebook and receive messages of a new sale or a new product line hitting the shelves in the upcoming weeks. Companies have been using MySpace for years to create custom pages for their promotion and making friends with current and potential customers in and around their target demographic.
Now that a savvy online marketer can build a profile, continuously grow a network and strategically contact said network with updates about the company and products themselves, it is time to bring in the advertising. Here are 5 things to know about social media advertising.
Understand your targeted social media channel - By knowing who is using which social media site, advertisers can promote their products to their targeted audience on the appropriate social site. Facebook users represent an older, more mature crowd than MySpace users, so advertisements about refinancing a home mortgage might not be the most appropriate content on MySpace.
Target the correct users with your message - Advertisements targeting users on social media channels are becoming more prevalent. There has been a lot of controversy about this content targeting on Facebook with their Social Ads. Here an ad is placed with related user actions and placed in the newsfeed for the users’ friends to see. If I were to change my status to say “Dana just bought a rockin’ pair of red high heels” a company selling shoes might be targeting “red high heels” and place their ad next to my status update. The company’s hope would then be that my friends were jealous of my new shoes and need an easy place to buy themselves a pair.
Ensure the advertisements are supplementing the present content on the social site - Having Google-powered PPC ads next to related lenses on Squidoo, using Yahoo to integrate advertisements with similarly tagged images on Flickr and using the Facebook social ads are placing the company directly in the path of those already seeking similar information. But now the advertisements are just offering one more way for the users to fulfill their need. Targeting pages, images and profiles that have content about shoes or fashion with the Red High Heels advertisement doesn’t seem out of place, and the user can identify with the advertised product.
Have a social networking presence - Integrating social media advertisements with social media usage is quite similar to placing PPC ads on a SERP next to an organically ranking website: two impressions are better than one. And because searchers seeing a brand name and PPC ad are likely to then click on the organic results for the same company, social media users could see the advertisements and search for the same company as a user on Facebook, Flickr or del.icio.us.
In addition, seeing a company successfully networking with the opinionated and persnickety social media community can really boost their reputation as being a caring company that is just “one of the guys.” Many people respect companies that are more down to earth and that interact with their customer base.
The time to get on board the social media train is now - Just like with social media networking, the early bird gets the worm. Being one of the first to successfully use social media as an advertising vehicle shows innovation and understanding who will respond best to the advertisement’s messaging. Once the Red High Heels company has penetrated the social media channel, positively showcasing their social networking/social advertising acumen, all others in the future will pale in comparison.
Incorporating social media advertisements with social media networking practices can give more impressions to the companies’ targeted users as well as a channel for users to connect with the company they trust. And give users the chance to wear great new shoes.