Ad Network Tracking - iMediaConnection.com

Ad Network Tracking - iMediaConnection.com:

Earlier this month, I wrote about the benefits of adding enhanced tracking to the marketer's website to improve the performance of campaigns with the ad networks. Since then I have received quite a bit of feedback from many different constituencies. The offer to do consulting projects aside (and that did not go unappreciated at all), the main responses I got were thanks for bringing this topic to light, as well as upcoming advances in this space.

The need for change
Much of the response was from many of the ad networks themselves, saying that while many advertisers do implement these pixels, many still do not-- anywhere from 40-60 percent of campaigns still run without this enhanced tracking!

And much of the response, I imagine, was out of frustration, since many of those campaigns falling into that 40-60 percent could perform so much better with this additional tracking in place. And the education needs to happen at various places. First, I wonder if the ad networks all inform and encourage the usage of these pixels. I have to imagine that they would be the first to recommend such tracking improvements.

But more importantly, are the agencies educating their clients on the benefits? In my past client positions, I know my agency did a great job in educating us, but from what I understand, that does not always happen. Whether it is too much hassle or the rush to get a campaign up, it seems many agencies are not letting their clients know about this option. They need to push for it to happen. A client's technology resources can definitely be an issue, but this is such an important step to take.

And clients don't get off the hook here either. Marketers need to make sure this gets implemented before launching an ad network campaign. Why start a campaign without all the proper tools in place?

What's up next?
There are actually many advances coming (or just arrived in beta) in this space. And hopefully these advances will help ease the process in the long run of getting more enhanced tracking live more quickly and efficiently.

The folks at Doubleclick are now in beta with their new Floodlight tracking product. This tag would replace the current Spotlight tag. Instead of the normal Spotlight tag that is placed on the confirmation page of the marketer's site, this new Floodlight tag could serve not only as a tracking tag for all online campaigns, but it will also allow insertion of ad network tags on the DFA side of the equation vs. having to add yet another tag to the marketer's website.

The other huge benefit of the Floodlight tag is that it removes duplication of conversions across sites and ad networks. For instance, if a user clicks an ad with Ad Network #1 today and then the next day clicks an ad for Network #2 and converts from the ad with Ad Network #2, both Ad Networks will get credit for that conversion and the advertiser is possibly paying twice for that one conversion (if it's a CPA buy). The Floodlight tag removes that issue, tracking that conversion, and at the same time calling only the Ad Network pixel where the conversion actually happened.

Now it will take additional resources at the beginning to implement this Floodlight tag. But once implemented, there will be a lot less tech time when adding a new ad network to the plan, and the improvement in conversion counting (removing duplications) will add to the efficiency of your plan.

This all said, Atlas has had a similar product in the marketplace for some time now. And I am sure the other ad servers are in the same development path, or possibly already there. Doubleclick was the one that has hit the radar most recently, and with the volume of ad serving they do, hopefully that will help push these sorts of initiative along even more expeditiously. Buying the right media is a big part of the battle, but being able to track and optimize it efficiently can often make an even bigger impact in the long run.

Pam Stein is CEO of Charlotte's Web Marketing. Read full bio.

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5 Demographic Targeting Tips - iMediaConnection.com

5 Demographic Targeting Tips - iMediaConnection.com: Introduction
Smart and successful web marketers spend their working hours determining how their efforts can drive more traffic, traffic that will result in higher volumes of customer conversion. But the smartest of these marketers get the most out of their budgets by developing online campaigns that target their most desired customers.

How? Demographic Targeting (DT) allows marketers to focus online ads on subscribers with their desired demographics (i.e., profession, industry, company size, gender, age group, household income, ethnicity, et cetera).

Next: How demo targeting works best

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How to Track an Ad Network Campaign - iMediaConnection.com

How to Track an Ad Network Campaign - iMediaConnection.com:

Introduction
Many of us have worked with the ad networks in one way or another. For direct response and brand campaigns alike, we have leaned on the ad networks for efficient pricing, high reach and a plethora of targeting options. But the one mistake many of us make is not investing the time and resources upfront to make these campaigns as successful as they can be.

Working with ad networks, it is crucial to make sure the proper tagging/coding is in place. So, while the advertiser can report on and track the ad networks’ performance in aggregate (via a third party server), the ad network is also able to do their best job for you by seeing which particular sites are performing the best-- based on the advertiser’s particular metrics.

Here's how it's done!

Next: Implement the pixel

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What ad networks offer that publishers don't - iMediaConnection.com

What ad networks offer that publishers don't - iMediaConnection.com

Debate over the value of third party ad networks is raging once again -- sparked anew by some recent assertions that ad networks reduce the value of publisher inventory.

But all the current discussion is really missing the point. The debate assumes that a direct sales model vs. a network sales model is an either/or decision for publishers. The fact is, the two have a longstanding symbiotic relationship.

In truth, ad networks (the good ones, anyway) sell something quite distinct from what publisher sales teams -- and even the newer vertical networks -- sell. Ad networks offer publishers the opportunity to contribute inventory and audiences which are monetized in a way that best meets the objectives of the ad network's advertisers, without guarantees of site placement or specific allocation of inventory in a reserved fashion.

Unlike publishers, networks sell broad reach across an aggregation of thousands of publisher sites, allowing ads to be directed at specific audiences within the network. That kind of reach and scale are simply not what individual publishers are all about -- just as third party networks can't offer front-page placement on a specific publisher page. To ensure that their unsold inventory is monetized and revenue is optimized, most publishers benefit from a mix of the two models. And the same goes for advertisers, who want single-site buys for some objectives and network buys for others.

Leading ad networks have long worked in partnership with publishers' in-house sales teams -- providing specialized strategies and tools for monetizing unsold inventory only. That is the relationship ad networks were built upon and that is why they remain a critical resource for so many publishers. Arguing direct sales vs. network sales doesn't really capture the way this online advertising ecosystem works. It is not apples to apples. Nor is it apples to pork bellies.

Far from competing with publisher sales organizations, the best networks work closely and collaboratively with their publisher counterparts to eliminate any possibility of cannibalism or brand erosion. The largest and most flexible networks will tailor solutions to publishers' needs, blocking specific ads, ad categories and creative types according to publisher requirements. For advertisers, ad networks offer a way to achieve both direct and branding goals across a wide array of sites. And this is done with a level of measurability and accountability that sets online advertising apart from other media.

Aside from the competition issue, another faulty assumption within the debate is that when inventory is put in the hands of an ad network, it becomes completely generic, losing its linkage to the publisher brand and its unique value.

The solutions that networks offer are not centered around the brand value of the individual properties across the network. However, since ad networks are able to leverage technology and audience to derive value, each property in a network performs differently based on the network's and the advertiser's objectives. In this environment, the value of publisher inventory in the context of an ad network can vary tremendously depending upon the publisher property.

As with most controversies in the world of ad networks, it all comes down to quality. Working with a quality ad network, most publishers and advertisers will thrive with a mix of direct sales and network-based solutions. If your inventory is being treated like a commodity, you are simply working with the wrong network.

David Jacobs is SVP, publisher services, Platform-A.

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5 smart ways to use ad networks - iMediaConnection.com

iMediaConnection.com

5 smart ways to use ad networks - Creative testing and brand impact

Savvy clients now carry out multiple test campaigns to identify appropriate targeting within a network to achieve maximum performance. But in fact, even for clients running a single campaign, testing is going on constantly within the ad network model. By virtue of having thousands of sites to choose from, a network's technology automatically identifies what sites should continue to show a campaign's creative to achieve the highest ROI. Thus, a network's optimization technology itself is a form of campaign testing.

More traditional methods of testing include copy and concept testing prior to the roll-out of a campaign to ensure a message is resonating well with the target audience.

The importance of creative testing also highlights the ability of networks to achieve lift in key brand metrics. Increasingly marketers are turning to ad networks for their extensive reach, transparency and cost-efficiency to deliver measurable brand advertising performance.

5 smart ways to use ad networks - Re-targeting and sequential messaging

Many marketers have found significant lift in performance when using re-targeting technology -- the technique of re-marketing to visitors who have previously expressed an interest in that marketer when its message appears on sites across the ad network. But now, a few savvy marketers have gone beyond just placing re-targeting pixel tags on their web pages, realizing that they can also include these tags in their ad creative.

Users who are served Flash creative, or who click on a standard banner, can be issued a cookie that will identify them at a later time when they appear on the network. This technique can be used to cost-effectively increase the frequency of exposure among an expensive or difficult to find niche audience.

Sequential messaging
Also known as storyboarding, sequential messaging strategies are intended to deliver creative based on what is known about a prospect's stage in the purchase process or relationship with the brand. At each point of the purchase cycle, sequential messaging enables marketers to present information with a unique continuity to communicate with consumers in more compelling ways.

5 smart ways to use ad networks - Network blast

As marketers have known for ages, repetition is the key to recollection. Accordingly, to ensure high repetition, marketers typically use "roadblock" advertisements to reach 100 percent of the visitors to a particular website within a short period of time. Loyal website visitors often see such roadblocks multiple times per day, while marketers are guaranteed that even intermittent visitors will be exposed to their messages at least once.

The network blast strategy -- the ad network equivalent of roadblocking -- is ideal for driving a high volume of impressions within a short amount of time. Network blasts are perfect for major product launches, live events, premieres and political races promoting any sort of time sensitive information. Earlier this year, Spark Communications deployed a network blast on ValueClick Media to achieve awareness of the program "Burn Notice" in the hours leading up to its airing on USA Network.

Because ad networks partner with thousands of websites, messages broadcast on ad networks tend to have a greater psychological impact on visitors than merely seeing the same ad on the same portal. Thus, a network blast will drive high impact awareness across a major portion of the internet audience within a short time span using the extensive reach of the ad network model.

5 smart ways to use ad networks

Whether or not they are regularly part of your media strategy, many marketers are exploiting some interesting techniques to drive their campaign performance.

In recent years, the ad network model has proven to be one of the largest, most cost-effective and optimized platforms for delivering scalable online advertising campaigns. Now, at the behest of their clients, large networks are extending their offerings to increase this performance.

Here are five techniques to better use ad networks to improve your current campaign performance. While not all of these techniques are necessarily new to online advertising, some have gone beyond their originally intended uses, and others should be revisited for their ability to drive overall campaign performance.

Author notes: Tony Winders is VP of marketing at ValueClick Media. Read full bio.

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Reaching the Long Tail of the Internet - iMediaConnection.com

Once again, we're driving you turning back "WHY AD NETWORK?".

If You already knew the Long Tail mean what, it's easier when you're exeriencing with this article.

Ad Network is a combination of many factors of Display Ad Industry - Technology, Platform, Experience,... They leverage the no. of sites via technology that is opposite to top portals like vnexpress or Zing or NewYork Times.

Let see how they leverage and reach the long tail..................................

Reaching the Long Tail of the Internet - iMediaConnection.com

It seems every day that a new advertising product hits the web. Since the birth of the basic banner, we have seen the development of pops, adware, search, contextual text links, behavioral targeting and more. Strip away the packaging and double talk and you are left with a means to get your message across the very long tail of the internet.

Every day the internet universe grows larger and larger. The low cost of entry and the proliferation of tools to create content and share it with others, allows everyone from your grandma to your younger sister to use the web. We have all been hit over the head with the overwhelming stats and daily reports of broadband penetration and increased internet usage by almost every demographic. With the proliferation of PVR, DVR, TiVo, Brand advertisers and marketers are rightly concerned about their ability to use traditional broadcast and cable networks, print, radio and outdoor to reach their audience and get their message seen and heard.

In the past six months in my talks with brand managers and heads of marketing at Fortune 100 companies, there is a pervasive concern about what to do with the web. They all concede privately, and some more publicly, that a greater and greater percentage of their marketing budgets are moving online. This is great news for our industry.

As more money moves online, where do advertisers spend it? They will obviously continue to buy media on larger portals, branded web destinations like MTVOnline, iVillage, etc., but there is a limit to inventory on insular destinations, which in turn produces pricing pressure. So these larger web properties have two choices: raise CPMs and minimum budgets or continue to acquire and gobble up smaller web sites and then package and sell them under one "branded" corporate moniker. These conglomerated web destinations can continue to advertise and market themselves at a price cheaper than they can sell ad inventory to brand advertisers, thereby arbitraging the acquisition of audience around the web and the sale of brand advertising on their destination. However, they can not keep pace with the advertising dollars spent online and the demand by advertisers and marketers to use the web to effectively reach broader and broader audiences where they truly live and breath -- across the long tail of the internet.

The ever expanding long tail of the internet.

Traditional ad networks have always been a play on the long tail, delivering ads run-of-network (RON), with no transparency to the advertiser and little share of voice or integration of the advertiser's messaging within the context of the web sites they distribute across. Search has been a very effective way to bring the long tail to the advertiser, but in a low impact manner of messaging. Both ad products are great for direct response and performance-based advertisers and marketers.

AOL may acquire WebBlogs, Fox may acquire an IGN or a MySpace, but at the end of the day they are still limited, to a certain degree, in terms of providing true reach across varied demographical or psychographical targets, share of voice, integration, etc. They can still only sell so many sites, into so many brand media buys for only so many dollars. An advertiser or their agency (especially) is never going to spend all of their money with one vendor, even if that vendor's name is Yahoo! or AOL. In a universe as broad as the web, with as much fragmentation and user disloyalty as there is, it is very difficult for large web conglomerates to be the "all in one" solution or a one-stop shop for every brand advertiser or marketer.

With the introduction of Google's Ad Sense display ad program, Google is attempting to bring the long tail to brand advertisers. Others need to and will follow. However contextual the advertising may be (and that is subject to heated debate), this ad product still does not deliver transparency of ad placement, guaranteed share of voice and true integration (sponsorship, advertorial, promotions) that brand advertisers so desire. The text of a webpage, in many instances, does not accurately reflect a site's true demographic. A quiz site may have a thousand different quizzes that deal with a myriad of topics form love, hate, cars, pets, etc., but audience still is female 13-20. Do Google or other contextual ad products accurately get the advertiser's message in front of that audience? I don't think so.

Brand advertisers need and demand share of voice, integration of message with content, media and promotional opportunities that connect the message with an audience in a way that will improve brand association, brand retention and purchase intent. This is difficult to do if you are not working closely with a publisher and "building" a media and promotional program. Web publishers, or the firms that represent them and the products that seek to effectively reach across them, need to be able to deliver on these key branding metrics. Our firm, Gorilla Nation Media, has for years been providing brand advertisers with reach, ad visibility, optimization and integrated media and promotional opportunities across fragmented audiences online. Whether an advertiser is buying MTVOnline, ESPN or IGN, they are buying it for each property's ability to deliver reach, share of voice, and integration that delivers on these brand metrics. It is possible to deliver on these critical brand metrics while representing or delivering reach across the long tail of the internet.

The majority of ad products in the marketplace leverage technology to efficiently connect the advertiser with the consumer. Some of these products manage to do so in a highly contextual environment. This is good. However, because they are predominately a technical versus service play, they all fail to deliver the type of high impact display advertisements in a manner that brand advertisers are accustomed to. Without having true control over the publisher and the webpage, these various ad products, whether Google' Ad Sense, Revenue Science, Kontera, Claria, etc., have no ability to guarantee an advertiser share of voice, provide advertorial or other integrated promotional programs or even high impact rich media opportunities.

The brand dollars are coming, are you ready to answer their call? Everyone wants a piece of the brand pie, but is your company prepared to overhaul or reengineer itself to service the demands of brand advertisers. If your business is a play on the long tail, then you better look at how you are managing inventory, servicing clients and delivering relevant, high impact campaigns.

Prior to founding Gorilla Nation Media in 2000, Brian Fitzgerald was an Intellectual Property attorney practising in Los Angeles, representing small to large film production and distribution company, music companies and talent, dealing wth copyright, trademark, contractual and litigation issues.

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Contextual Advertising - iMediaConnection.com

Years ago, when ad network become and appear in each advertisers' plan, that meant they have tried alot to prove their esixtence and effectiveness.

So, that time What does the basic that an ad network do!? Let's find out. (I said that time given that the time of something new, the time like the first stage of iced period)

Contextual is the basic!!! Just try to experience the below articles and take a carefully look the next side of the content you're reading!!

In fact that nowaday ad networks can do better beyond the contextual!!

Contextual Advertising: A Win/Win/Win - iMediaConnection.com

As new contextual networks emerge, many of them increasingly are capable of delivering an Internet advertising solution that is a win for the advertiser, the publisher and the consumer.

Advertisers continue to shift around their online spends to stay aligned with the changing needs of the market and the new possibilities of advertising technology. With these changes has come a shifting of priorities toward a tighter focus on demonstrable conversion and real-time results. End users want to see fewer irrelevant messages and publishers wish to maximize the value of their online real estate. This confluence of pressures has had an impact on advertising agencies, forcing them to seek solutions that go beyond the creative and incorporate artificial intelligence that delivers instant insight into campaigns and the ability to respond to that insight immediately.

Ad networks are a vital component of a media plan and one that can help a company live up to these challenges. During the start of online advertising, ad networks struggled to justify their existence; now, networks are welcomed in every major advertising budget due to their reach and scalability. Traditional ad networks can provide immediate, targeted results -- and by working with an ad network it becomes considerably easier to understand the marketing challenges, the ever-changing dynamics and the science behind driving greater value from online advertising.

As the industry matures, a new breed of advertising networks is coming to light -- contextual networks that combine the technology to understand natural language with the real-time analytics of artificial intelligence for automated campaign optimization.

While most of us know that contextual advertising means that an ad will show up in a spot highly appropriate to its content, thus driving the likelihood of a positive response, fewer of us realize the importance of a network truly understanding the meaning of content. Natural language processing and semantic analysis are especially significant. It is important for advertisers to choose the proper ad network because regardless of an ad's perceived contextual relevance, unless the system has a deep understanding of the language and the ever-changing content of a site, many chosen ads will not be truly contextual. Yet, highly successful networks will strive to make advertisements become content.

Advanced contextual technology helps content become even more relevant and accurate, providing marketers a first time opportunity to display what they want to market right in front of the user who is looking for them. This model benefits everyone in the online advertising equation. The publisher's interests are served because they use their online ad space most effectively and at a premium; the advertiser benefits due to the increased response to their message and the improved ROI; and the end user is well-served because they are less likely to see advertisements that are not relevant to them.

These new ad networks give increased reach into high quality media environments, in addition to helping companies work through the initial challenges of setting up a media plan to include Internet marketing. They help companies figure out how to best rise above the Web's clutter -- where users feel overwhelmed by several ads on nearly every Web page they see -- without provoking frustration over privacy violations. They also offer media planners lead generation, the branding and frequency elements necessary in achieving good cost per action (CPA) and other important result metrics. Additionally, these networks make it easier to react to the unpredictable behavior of a target market comprised by consumers who won't always be making their online purchasing decisions in the way we initially think they will.

Today's integrated direct response networks are able to bring campaigns to a new level of direct response, relevance and ROI by bringing natural language processing together with solid optimization and analytics. The ad network of the future will include even more personalization and behavioral targeting technology that also protects individual privacy. There will also be powerful pay-for-performance networks of content sites that run ads and further leverage advanced linguistics and other powerful technologies.

These contextual direct response technologies are shaping our industry to better address the interests and concerns of all of the players in the equation. As each player -- consumer, advertiser and publisher -- perceives more value, the size of the pie increases for everyone.

Gurbaksh Chahal is CEO of BlueLithium, the Internet's largest customized direct response network. He previously founded Click Agents, a company that merged with ValueClick to create the largest cost-per-click advertising network

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The Ad Network Advantage - iMediaConnection.com

When you already know what an Ad Network is, the next step you could increase your knowledge by thinking

- why an Ad Network is invented and

- what is advantages of Ad Networks!?

- What benefits does an Ad Network bring back to your brands?

Let's make a back-look to Vietnam Market. If you're an advertiser or a marketer and used to work with an ad network, Do you ever recognize its advantage or just try to allocate the money for marketing department!?

The Ad Network Advantage - iMediaConnection.com

The online ad network has staged a dramatic comeback and once again forms a key part of most online media plans. The reasons for the momentum behind this trend are complex and varied, but I have highlighted four of the most important.

1. Increased reach into high quality environments

Access to media space from the biggest online media outlets is limited. Many companies can not afford the prices of ads on dominant portals such as AOL, Yahoo! or MSN. Big brands often tie up exclusive deals with these portals and pre-book the inventory.

In addition, the online media market is becoming increasingly complex and fragmented. Media consumption follows the same trend: Internet users are turning more and more to specialist outlets that offer them targeted and high quality content, which leads to higher costs and smaller audiences for publishers.

In a market where access to quality media is limited, ad networks offer advertisers increased reach into quality media environments. Networks are able to aggregate access to highly targeted, quality environments that offer incredible specificity in the B2C and B2B markets.

For media planners, getting reach and targeting at the same time is ideal. Take the example of locally targeted and geo-targeted campaigns. The yellow pages of the world are definitely not ready yet to offer both to advertisers.

Quality is also sustained by the input of media planners. They can now suggest new sites to ad networks that can be added to custom media buys. Ad networks are offering more and more transparency, revealing the list of publishers they work with and (just like in an affiliate program) you can opt-out of certain sites. Transparency and accuracy are backed up by industry authorities. (Media Metrix/BPA). The most recent example is BURST! Media, which has successfully passed five consecutive BPA audits.

Networks, therefore, can be powerful media planning tools.

2. Struggle for ROI

Ad networks offer media planners the option to switch to a CPA model on a long-term basis. Lead generation campaigns only work with volume, multiple touch points and low-entry cost.

The main reason network buys are successful in delivering good CPA is that they provide the branding and frequency element everybody tends to forget about.

Very often, one will notice post-impression conversion, which is a reminder that contextual advertising is important for branding and lead generation rather than just immediate direct sales.

Networks remind us of the basic rules of performance programs.

3. Audiences reactions are unpredictable

Audiences don't always behave the way we expect. It can be surprising to see where a household insurance company gets the best results from an online campaign -- a finance site or a travel site? Let's look at the consumer mindset: On a personal finance site one might be busy checking shares levels; on a travel site a user is booking a holiday in the knowledge that he or she will be leaving the house exposed to burglars.

Acceleration recently conducted a campaign for a major car rental company and we found that most bookings were made by visitors that clicked through from entertainment and music sites rather than by ones who came from travel sites.

More often than we realize, the mindset of the audience is much more important than its surfing environment. People don't do things in the order we expect them to; brand loyalty is on the decline, and comparison shopping is common practice.

Because audience behaviors are so unpredictable, it is important for media schedules to remain flexible so they can adapt quickly to guarantee that the best performing placements are retained against non-performing placements. With ad networks, inventory shift is easy and often automatically optimized based on the ROI delivered.

Networks remind us the importance of mindset and messaging.

4. Technology and targeting

Ad networks offer multiple targeting options like demographics, site genre, geography, day part and so on. They can optimize any campaign based on these variables. One of the most interesting options is behavior targeting: targeting by users' activity on the advertiser site. This reminds marketers that the most important thing for them is to understand their audience and how visitors interact with their products and services.

Media planners are used to referring to research and demographic data to build media plans. They are predicting a reaction. Now media planners should use Web site activity data and be proactive in optimizing their campaigns accordingly.

If a visitor leaves your site it is not necessarily because it is a bad lead, but perhaps because you served up the wrong landing page or did not provide the right information at the right time. This is where analytic tools can come into powerful play. Analytics solutions should be integrated with media planning.

Marketers should not only leverage ad network targeting and optimization technology but also make the most of Web site measurement and analytics solutions. Behavior targeting options include remarketing to somebody who abandoned the shopping cart -- a tactic that is proving successful for many marketers. This success is a reminder that you will always get a better ROI from previous visitors than new ones.

Is retention becoming a real part of media planning strategies? With such an eclectic media landscape and varied surfing behaviors, retaining first time visitors is becoming the media teams' responsibility. Media planners should add a second layer of pre-retention to their campaign in order to maximize performance.

Networks show us where media, analytics and retention teams should meet.

Media buyers have a huge selection of ad networks to choose from, offering a range of performance-based and behavioral targeting business models. As the fragmentation of the online media world continues unabated, we can expect them to play an increasingly important role in advertisers' online marketing strategies.

Julie Jeancolas, Media Director at Acceleration, has a marketing and finance degree from leading French business school ESC Reims. Formerly Group Account Director at Outrider, Jeancolas has worked around the world at leading traditional and online advertising and media agencies as a media specialist. Jeancolas heads up the media unit at Acceleration, the dynamic, results-orientated eMarketing services company that works with leading global marketers and advertising agencies to deliver a return on investment through the online platform.

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