Ad Networks Disturbing the Online Ad Ecosystem
If you’re in the digital ad buying or sales business, listen up. Advertising networks are wreaking havoc online and disturbing the internet advertising ecosystem. AdAge and MediaWeek recently wrote about the great debate. So did the folks at Balihoo, a valued sponsored of this blog, with a post titled Ad Network Conundrum. As Balihoo underscores, the usage of ad networks increased by 30 in 2007. What most people don’t realize is that the impact of ad networks on ad prices is huge – an average 90 percent discount compared to the publisher’s typical prices. While this clearly hurts publishers, Balihoo does a great job highlighting the implications to both advertisers and agencies.
To help agencies add value, streamline operations and improve ad economics, Balihoo offers an agency-specific product called Balihoo Agency Edition. Last month, they also introduced Balihoo Publisher Edition for media sellers and publishers across all mediums. A week later, TechInsights (formerly CMP) announced that they were rolling out TechInsights Direct, powered by Balihoo Publisher Edition, to help them sell their print, online and events advertising inventory directly to agencies and marketers.
Given the climate of the advertising industry today with pressures on publishers to increase both revenues and profits in a down market, it would seem likely that we’ll soon see future implementations of this product at other publishers. This video does a pretty good job explaining what the product does (at least the TechInsights implementation of it):
