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JupiterResearch finds consolidation to strengthen online advertising network market despite negative reputation issues

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JupiterResearch has found that despite negative feelings from advertisers, both independent and conglomerate ad networks will remain major players in the online ad market. The big four—Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL—captured 60 percent of US online ad spending in 2007. With their wide-scale acquisition of third-party ad network companies in the past year, the major players may be able to offer true one-stop shopping in the near term, as indicated in a new report “The New Ad Network: Managing Relationships During Industry Evolution” published by JupiterResearch.

According to the report, ad networks do provide low-cost reach, however, only 23 percent of online advertisers using networks believe they are more cost-effective than individual sites, with many hoping to decrease use in the near term. As brand advertisers have increased spending on online display advertising, networks have increased offerings such as mobile and video advertising, full-service creative implementation, targeting, and custom integration with brand name partners’ web sites. As much as one-quarter of all online ad spending flows through networks, and the majority of large advertisers and agencies have a contract with an ad serving company.

Despite lingering negative reputations, ad networks can be sophisticated partners – advertisers that use networks are more likely than are other advertisers to believe factors such as improved measurability and tools tying online advertising to off-line behavior will play a pivotal role in improved advertising, and ad networks excel at and continue to improve on providing these features.

Originally posted on April 17, 2008 @ 10:14 pm

MySpace introduces Community Builder Platform for advertising community

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MySpace announced the beta launch of the Community Builder advertising platform. The new platform gives MySpace advertisers the ability to build, maintain and customize brand profiles while also providing guaranteed valuable analytics to help them gauge campaign performance and make real-time adjustments to maximize effectiveness. The platform is currently being beta tested by Deep Focus.

The Community Builder platform is available in two versions, ‘Self-Service’ and ‘Full-Service’, enabling advertisers to effectively choose the solution that is most relevant for the brand and community depending on the level of customization required. Both versions give advertisers 24/7 access to update community elements (blogs, bulletins), increased analytics (via Hitbox) and increased profile functionality, giving them the control to create and maintain brand momentum with users in an unprecedented way.

Self-Service is aimed at advertisers who are familiar with MySpace and who have advanced design coding skills (CSS and XHTML) with the time and resources required to maintain a community.

Full-Service, in contrast, is a complete solution provided by MySpace for advertisers who require a premium in-house production solution with a fully-customized level of service that fully utilizes the wide variety of in-house MySpace experts in user experience, community design, and interactive element solutions (including sweepstakes and contests).

Originally posted on April 20, 2008 @ 9:41 pm

Media Layers and uVuMobile to serve mobile advertising

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Media Layers and uVuMobile, Inc. has launched a joint mobile advertising offering. Based on Media Layers’ SMART solution, uVuMobile customers can now provide their subscribers with highly targeted video and audio on- and off-portal mobile advertising. Combining SMART’s innovative real-time personalization technology with uVuMobile’s robust content delivery network and top-notch content offering. This joint mobile advertising solution will deliver end-users a highly relevant and exciting content experience.

Media Layers’ comprehensive SMART solution provides operators and service providers a framework for managing the complete advertising cycle while maximizing the value of mobile ad space. With advanced built-in automatic predictive analytics tools, advertisers will be able to realize the highest rate of return on their investment (ROI).

Originally posted on April 16, 2008 @ 7:39 am

Kiwibox monetizes mobile version of web site through partnership with Burst Media

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Kiwibox, the social networking destination and online magazine where teens produce, discover, and share content while connecting with friends, announced a strategic partnership with Burst Media. The partnership is designed to monetize a mobile version of the Kiwibox.com web site with mobile-specific advertising.

This agreement extends Kiwibox’s current mobile advertising strategy, which includes delivering age appropriate content to the highly sought after teen market. The agreement, an extension of the two companies’ ongoing eight-year relationship, gives Burst and Kiwibox the ability to easily monetize available inventory on the fast growing mobile web. Burst Media currently runs several teen friendly advertisers on Kiwibox.com.

Originally posted on April 15, 2008 @ 10:51 pm

Userplane ranks high on largest advertising networks in the U.S.

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Userplane announced that the company has been ranked as the 27th largest ad network in the U.S. for the month of March by comScore, Inc..

Given that the comScore top 30 consists almost entirely of pure-play ad networks, the ranking affirms the success of Userplane’s longtail strategy around its Userplane Money offering. Userplane Money, which was launched in May 2007, is a revenue-sharing solution that serves up unobtrusive ads to publishers and Userplane-branded products — including its instant messaging platform Webmessenger, Webchat and widget offerings. Userplane’s core business is the development and distribution of feature-rich social applications.

According to comScore’s March 2008 Media Metrix report, Userplane’s ad network displayed nearly 28 billion during March, placing the company comfortably among the top 30 ad networks. comScore rankings, which are considered the definitive benchmark for accessing the productivity of Web properties, are generated using comScore Ad Metrix, its proprietary technology solution that provides advertisers and publishers with detailed profiles of online display ad views.

Originally posted on April 15, 2008 @ 10:02 pm