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| Address URL | http://www.alleyinsider.com/ Registered: 22-Mar-2008 |
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 Send to email | Ad Networks Are For Losers in General |  By Silicon
el 24-Mar-2008 |  I've never liked the ad network business. They're a very short term
solution and they are very damaging to high-end publishers because they
create massive channel conflicts (i.e. many people selling your
inventory confusing advertisers), they run horrible ads that people
hate (think punch the monkey), and the space is filled with dishonest
players (i.e. they promise to not run certain types of ads... but they
do).
Nick Denton stopped running ad networks realizing he was
better off having one phone number for people who wanted the Gawker
audience. He also made his sites look MUCH better to users by not
running Lowermybills , Netflix, Blockbuster, and AdultFriendFinder ads.
We were on the verge of doing the same thing when we sold Weblogs, Inc.
to AOL, and now ESPN is kicking out the ad networks.
This ESPN quote says it all:
"the use of ad nets diminishes the value of
their brand and content by spreading it so widely, ultimately
threatening existing relationships with advertisers"
It's so obvious to anyone with premium content that
giving it away is a huge mistake in the long term. HUGE. It is a zero
sum game: you have a limited amount of inventory. Give it away and
folks get trained to think your inventory is cheap. Do it for too long
and marketers don't want your audience.
Many of my friends
give their inventory away to 3rd party networks and I've told them in
no uncertain terms they are fools--really, really fools. In order to be
a REAL publisher you must have control of three relationships:
- Your writers
- Your readers
- Your advertisers
You can not build a *real* publishing business (as in tens of millions
of dollars in revenue) on the backs of ad networks. They simply take
too much money (40-50%?!?!?! really?!?! What a waste of money... you
internal sales group will cost 10-25%), they are spread too thin, and
even with their absurd 50% fees they don't have enough margin. If
you're under $250,000 a year in advertising? Sure, go for it. Break
$250,000 a year, you should go for it with an ad sales person. My advice if you are midsized publisher is to:
- Hire three advertising people
- Spend 50% of your time going to advertising meetings
- Kick
out your ad networks and replace with something simply like Google
Adsense as your backfill (note: i don't consider Adsense an ad network
like the display ad networks out there... AdSense is content in the
form of advertisements to me... but that's another post).
That's it. Grow up, publishers... you have to take ownership of your
advertising relationships, not give them away. Don't buy this BS that
you can't do it and you should focus on making great content--that's a
crock. Your inventory is pure gold and you can sell it. These ad
networks try to intimidate small publishers into thinking they can't
sell their own inventory--NOT TRUE! You don't have to get a yes from
every advertisers, all you need to do is get one out of 25 advertisers
to say yes and you've got a HUGE business. More from PaidContent.
Jason Calacanis is the CEO and Founder of Mahalo. He writes the well-read blog calacanis.com.
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| Ad Networks Are For Losers | | I've never liked the ad network business. They're a very short term
solution and they are very damaging to high-end publishers because they
create massive channel conflicts (i.e. many people selling your
inventory confusing advertisers), they [..] Read complete article | | Published 24-Mar-2008 by Silicon in General
Read 8 times. More hits in   |
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| Is ESPN.com Booting (Some) Ad Networks? | | ESPN.com told MediaWeek it is dropping its third-party ad networks, including Specific Media and several others left unnamed. "We're heading down a path where it no longer suits our business needs to work with ad networks," says sales exe [..] Read complete article | | Published 24-Mar-2008 by Silicon in DISTWX
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 | Problogger |  Blogger | Blog tips to help you blogging
ProBlogger Blog Tips Make Money Online |
| Talking Blog Networks | | There has been ALOT of talk around the blogosphere about blog networks lately - ALOT!
Some of it is as a result of the closing of the Know More Media blog network, some of it as a result of AOL and Gawker making changes to the way their networks pay bloggers and some of it is…. [...] [..] Read complete article | | Published 31-Jul-2008 by Darren Rowse in Blog Networks
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| Nerdblog | Blogger | Provides news about hardware, software, notebooks, laptops, PCs, Mac, PDAs
Nerdblog.Net |
| Advertisers Bet On HD TV | | HD TV is a hit with at least one big ad buyer: Publicis' Starcom, which inked what its calling an "upfront" ad deal with Discovery HD Networks, Mark Cuban's HDNet, NBC Universal's Universal HD, and DirectTV's HD networks.
Aside from Di [..] Read complete article | | Published 02-Apr-2008 by Silicon in General
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Web video site Next New Networks has raised $23 million, launched a series of micro-networks, and is trying to get a handle on how it might generate revenue. Now it has another task: [..] 
Why are online publishers from Forbes.com to ESPN to Turner Networks taking shots at ad networks? Here's a theory: Their own ad sales are softening, and they suspect ad networks are partly to blam [..] 
Next New Networks has long avoided the model pursued by many of its smaller, less well-funded competitors: Creating video expressly for advertisers.
That's pretty much over [..] 
