Article Link:  http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=109038

Article Author: Laurie Sullivan

Article Date: 1-Jul-09

From the Article:

“Geier recalls how Laura Christine, vice president of direct marketing and e-commerce at shoemaker Skechers USA, told attendees at the Internet Retailer 2009 conference in June that she put 94% of the company’s entire online budget into retargeting. Christine reduced Skechers’ partnerships to seven ad networks from 20. While Geier couldn’t recall her exact return on investment, he says the ROI exceeded 200% on more than $2 million in revenue.”

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=109038

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Google Loses Another Ad Exec

Article Link: Adage

Article Author: Bill Shea and Michael Learmonth

Article Date: 04-June-09

From the Article:

Grady Burnett, head of Google’s AdWords division, is leaving the company for Facebook, Ad Age sibling Crain’s Detroit Business reported today. He is the fourth top ad exec to leave the search giant in recent months.

Mr. Burnett will move from Google’s AdWords operation in Ann Arbor, Mich., to Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., to head Facebook’s global self-serve-ad operation, reporting to Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

Just this week Google’s head of advertising-agency relations, Erin Clift, left Google for AOL, joining former Google exec Jeff Levick, AOL’s global head of ad strategy, and, of course, Tim Armstrong, the former head of North America for Google, who is now CEO of AOL.

Move Over, Q Scores

Article Link: Adage

Article Author: Wayne Arnold

Article Date: 01 -June-09

From the Article:

As Simon Clift of Unilever made clear at the Ad Age Digital Conference recently, brands no longer have total control of the communications surrounding their products or even the positioning of them. That power is now in the hands of the digital consumer. Ford agrees. It’s just asked 100 bloggers to launch the Fiesta in the U.S.

Every week I read about a campaign headed in that direction. Skittles and Land Rover had their respective Twitter experiments, and while we are yet to find out if candy flew off the shelves and more 4x4s hit the road, I applaud their willingness and bravery in stress testing what I, too, think are the new rules.

MySpace Experimenting With Interactive Ads Powered By SocialMedia

Article Link: TechCrunch

Article Author: Jason Kincaid

Article Date: 01 -June-09

From the Article:

At this morning’s Conversational Marketing Summit in New York, SocialMedia CEO Seth Goldstein revealed that the advertising company had been working with MySpace to develop and deploy ‘Interaction Ads’ – an advertising product that can prompt a MySpace member for input and use that, along with MySpace’s social graph, to tailor the advertising shown to their friends.

Ad network Collective Media raises $20M more, targets the big three

Article Source: http://venturebeat.com/

Article Link: http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/12/ad-network-collective-media-raises-20m-more-targets-the-big-three/

Article Author: Matt Marshall

Article Date: 12-Apr-09

“Collective Media, an ad network you probably haven’t heard of, has been slowly rising through the ranks of ad networks. It is the 19th largest ad network, according to the most recent Comscore data (February), up from 21st last year.

It has just raised $20 million more in a financing round led by Accel Partners, with iNovia Capital participating.”

Web Ad Growth Falls Off — and So Do the Salaries

Article Source: http://adage.com

Article Link: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=132032

Article Author: Michael Learmonth

Article Date: 28-Oct-08

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The $23 billion online ad market is slowing down, and so is the once white-hot market for online-ad talent.

Five years of double-digit growth fueled a scramble for talent unseen since the last boom, as hundreds of ad networks and venture-funded start-ups competed with the portals, agencies and marketers to hire anyone who knew — or agreed to learn — how to sell or buy and online advertising.

Aside from the burst of another asset bubble, there are few similarities between the internet bust of 2000 and the slowdown occurring today. First, most believe we’re looking at a few years of single-digit growth, not negative growth, as occurred between 2000 and 2002. In 2000, online advertising was still experimental for most marketers; today it’s part of the mainstream.

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Online Ad Network Prices Dropped In April

Article Source: http://www.informationweek.com

Article Link: http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207800131&subSection=All+Stories

The AdPrice Index showed an average 23% decline from March to April in monetization from online ads.

By K.C. Jones, InformationWeek
May 14, 2008 02:55 PM

The U.S. economic slowdown has hurt online ad network sales, according to a report showing an average 23% decline in monetization from online ads.

PubMatic, a company that automates and optimizes ad inventory decision-making for Internet publishing, released its second AdPrice Index on Wednesday.

The index, based on information from more than 3,000 publishers and billions of ad impressions, showed that Web sites with more than 100 million monthly page views felt the steepest drop. Those sites’ monetization rates from ad networks plummeted by 52%, from 38 cents in March to 18 cents in April, PubMatic said.Eighty-five percent of the Web sites included in the analysis are based in the United States. The numbers, which reflect monetization from ad networks, exclude the networks’ share of ad spending and inventory that publishers sell directly to ad agencies or advertisers.

Web sites with 1 million to 100 million monthly page views declined from 34 cents to 33 cents in the same period, according to the index. However, monetization increased from $1.18 in March to $1.29 in April for small Web sites.

The report looked at vertical markets and found that social networking dropped more than others (47%), from 37 cents in March to 19 cents in April. Before that, January saw lows of 22 cents. Entertainment decreased 17% from 40 cents to 33 cents from March to April, according to the index. Gaming and sports dropped 4% and 5%, respectively.

Technology saw 83 cents in April compared with 82 cents in March. That’s still down from January, when technology Web sites’ ad network monetization hit a high of 92 cents.

PubMatic said that many publishers turn to best practices to maintain or grow revenue and offset declines. Best practices include network diversification, monetization of international traffic to cope with the weak U.S. dollar, and segmentation of categories.

New News Corp ad network to court financial sites

Article Source: http://www.reuters.com

Article Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN1640790620080519

Mon May 19, 2008 1:23am EDT, By Kenneth Li

NEW YORK (Reuters) – News Corp’s .Fox Networks is launching an international online ad network Monday focused on financial news and advice, with help from the Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

About 30 web site publishers are part of the network, called Worthnet.Fox, including Dow Jones’s Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and MarketWatch. News Corp bought Dow Jones last December.

The network is designed to target a growing class of executives who spend time in myriad global regions, as economic borders dissolve amid international expansion.

“The economy has grown around the world and has helped create a new global affluent individual,” Hernan Lopez, chief operating officer of Fox International Channels, said in an interview. For example, the site would target “the head of world financial companies that expands his operations in India and wants a local manager that has experience in more international companies.”

.Fox Networks, an online advertising network that helps market unsold advertising space on web sites outside of the United States, is a division of News Corp’s Fox International Channels.

Relatively unknown in the U.S. until April, .Fox is taking a more prominent role within Rupert Murdoch’s empire as it seeks ways to work with the media mogul’s vast portfolio of companies.

In April, .Fox purchased European online video ad network Utarget for an undisclosed sum and announced it would start finding ways to work with one of News Corp’s most closely watched divisions — Fox Interactive Media, which oversees the world’s largest social network, MySpace.

The launch of Worthnet.Fox appears to be part of News Corp’s intentions to expand Dow Jones’s international presence as rivals, including Thomson Reuters, consolidate.

Since Murdoch’s estimated $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones last December, the 77-year-old executive has made the division a top priority and has said he aimed to make Dow Jones’s Wall Street Journal not just a must-read in the United States, but also a formidable global competitor in financial and political news and data.

Lopez said his division worked closely with Dow Jones in creating Worthnet.Fox. The new network will help Dow Jones sell ad inventory in areas outside the United States where Dow does not currently operate sales offices, focusing on Latin America.

(Reporting by Kenneth Li, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

CBS Scores With Sports Ad Network

Article Source: http://redherring.com

Article Link: http://www.redherring.com/Home/24278

by Cassimir Medford on 21 May 2008, 13:26

CBS Sports on Wednesday announced that it is discontinuing its use of third-party online ad networks and starting its own.

The move by CBS underscores a growing trend in the online ad industry of old media firms such as Forbes, Black Entertainment Television, and Martha Stewart Living mobilizing their own resources to connect advertisers to publishers.

“Over the last few years there has been a giving away of a lot of inventory to blind remnant ad networks where the advertiser does not have any control of where their ads end up,” said Jason Kint, senior vice president and general manager of CBSSports.com and CBSNews.com.

Advertiser experiences with these remnant ad networks, Mr. Kint said, have been “less than optimal,” because they lack transparency, and that makes brand management and the measurement of campaign effectiveness difficult.

Ad networks such as Advertising.com, Specific Media, and TACODA provide a virtual meeting place where advertisers are connected to web publishers looking to sell ad inventory.

“But there are limitations on the level of control mass market ad networks can give since they are offering leftover inventory from a lot of places that the publisher could not sell so brand advertisers are wary of these networks,” said Michael Greene, an analyst with JupiterResearch.

Old media firms such as the Washington Post and CBS are building their own online ad networks to drive additional revenue from online ads and to accommodate brand advertisers willing to pay a premium for improved oversight.

CBS College Sports Media offers an array of college sports sites including CBSSports.com, NCAA.com, and the official sites of approximately 215 U.S. colleges.

CBS has invested heavily in college sports, which attracts a much sought after but elusive demographic of college educated males ages 18-49.

“College sports is such a fragmented space online that it’s good for advertisers to access this inventory from one place,” said Mr. Greene. “This is one of the more difficult audiences for advertisers to reach.”

CBS’s online streaming of the NCAA Division l Men’s Basketball tournament attracted 4.75 million unique visitors this year, more than double last year’s total.

CBS said its College Sports Media reached more than 10 million unique visitors overall in March and delivered 1.5 billion impressions.

AOL sheds its brand to draw specialty audiences

Article Source: http://excite.com

Article Link: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080517/D90NCCKG0.html

May 17, 7:46 AM (ET)

By ANICK JESDANUN

NEW YORK (AP) – Unless you’re looking carefully, you’ll likely miss the fact that the new Asylum Web site for young men is a creation of Time Warner Inc. (TWX)’s AOL. Same for WalletPop on personal finance, Spinner on indie music and StyleList on fashion.

The AOL brand is taking a back seat as the company long associated with dial-up Internet access for the masses quietly launches dozens of sites targeted at specialized audiences.

AOL figures that to grow its audiences – and draw additional advertising the company crucially needs to offset plunging revenue from its shrinking base of Internet access subscribers – it must break from a one-size-fits-all model and let its specialty sites set their own designs and editorial tone, shedding the AOL brand when necessary.

Bill Wilson, AOL‘s executive vice president for vertical programming, said the company has been retaining the AOL name for some sites – AOL Body is one, after research showed women 25 and up respond well to the brand.

And the brand isn’t completely invisible even if AOL isn’t part of the site’s name. There’s usually a small AOL logo somewhere, along with links to other AOL sites. The right mix, Wilson said, is the product of research on what makes the most sense for consumers.

Take Asylum, which has grown into a leading site for young men since its December launch. The name was chosen partly to convey humor and irreverence.

“If we put it out as AOL Men, we got the feedback it wouldn’t connect,” said Mike Rich, a senior vice president who oversees Asylum and other specialty sites. “People just didn’t connect this type of content with the AOL brand.”

Wilson said AOL‘s unbranding can help potential visitors know that the site isn’t part of its subscription service, which AOL started breaking down in late 2004 in favor of free, ad-supported sites.

AOL parent Time Warner was more blunt in a regulatory filing:

“If AOL cannot effectively build a portfolio of alternate brands that are appealing to Internet consumers, AOL may have difficulty in increasing the engagement of Internet consumers on its Web products and services. AOL believes that the ‘AOL‘ brand is associated in the minds of consumers with its dial-up Internet access service.”

AOL is by no means alone in promoting alternative brands.

Google Inc. (GOOG) has its homegrown Orkut social-networking service alongside its Picasa photo products and YouTube video-sharing site, both brands that came in through acquisitions. On the other hand, the Keyhole brand disappeared when Google bought the mapping concern, which became Google Earth.

Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), meanwhile, has Flickr photos and recently launched Shine for women.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has a slew of brand names, including MSN, Hotmail and Live.

But unbranding represents a reversal for AOL after it tried to make its Moviefone and Netscape acquisitions more AOL-like. Type in “Moviefone.com,” for instance, and you’re automatically redirected to “movies.aol.com.”

“AOL currently implies legacy. It implies old. It implies out of date,” said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst with the Enderle Group. “If you want to attract a new, young audience to a site, attaching ‘AOL‘ is probably a kiss of death. They are wise to use the new individual property brands.”