Ozone Media Ad Network Gets IDG Funding: WAT Looks at the Coming of Age or the Irrational Exuberance of Indian Online Advertising
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In behavioral finance circles, we often come across a term called irrational exuberance when fundamentally weak stocks start performing unbelievably well. Today, we, WATblog in particular, are marked with news about Online Advertising Network launches and funding. The latest in the assembly line being Ozone Media sitting on what is rumored to be a $4 million funding deal (first round) from IDG ventures. Are all these signs of such an exuberance not based on rationality, or is it the new wave that everyone can cash on?
Ozone is a Bangalore based ad network with, what is said to be, a 100 strong publisher network and advertising clients, including HSBC, SBI, Yahoo!, Lenovo among others. Their publisher base primarily consists of small and medium sized publishers with lack of a sales infrastructure but with ad inventory to sell. The funding plans to take care of developing this publisher base and strengthen the network while support Ozone’s marketing endeavors as well.
IDG has been an oft quoted venture player in the Indian online market. This will be its eighth venture partnership with an Indian internet start up which includes players like Kreeda, Aujas Networks, ConnectM, etc. Incidentally, Ozone already has a partnership that delivers video advertising to 3D Solid Compression, one of IDG’s portfolio company.
What sets Ozone apart is perhaps its choice of publishers, which isn’t governed by any particular vertical like in the case of Divanation or GoSindbad or Tonictag. However, that might put it in the same niche as a Tyroo (and to an extent Adsense and Komli). This is very speculative on my part and I wouldn’t be the best person to comment on it since I don’t have the faintest idea about who Ozone’s publishers are.
Having said that, the abundance of this ad network influx hitting the market does raise some questions in my head. We already have the heavyweight in Google, and besides the above 6, there are Sulekha, Media Estate, IndiAds and AdsForIndians doing rounds and perhaps a few more on the anvil. With international biggie Glam keen on India, it suddenly looks a tad crowded a market.
Obviosuly, most of them are driven by the fact that Indian online advertising is pegged at 250-400 crores currently and slated to touch 2500 crores in the next 3 years. If my maths serves me right (which it doesn’t usually) then that is a 1000% growth that we are looking at. However, an important question crops up in terms of the conversions for advertisers. There are new publishers rising up by the dozen every minute these days and projections of content based websites like blogs and social networking is predicted to increase dramatically.
That, however, doesn’t answer for the quality of that this publisher base can bring in. How handy would these publishers and websites be when it comes to converting ad spends in to leads or sales? For all said and done, if the volumes don’t add up to measurable numbers that make business sense, the projections can fall down worse than a black day at the BSE.
Engaging and building publisher quality somehow is not something evident in most of these networks. Of course this can also be because they think it is a given and doesn’t require to be highlighted in particular, in which case things would seem rosier than what it is now. Otherwise, what my skeptic and cynical mind sees is another bubble bursting before we even realize it. Then again, it is skepticism and cynicism speaking, so perhaps what we are witnessing is the advent of a very active and productive market of the Indian online advertising industry.
Like I said, it’s either the coming of age, or a mere irrational exuberance based on possibilities.
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Hi Maneesh,
did you miss DGM ?
As far as I know , DGM holds highest impressions compared to any other ad-network in India.
One more addition:
almost 80% of Indian sites work with all ad-networks. So, at any given point of time Ozone, Tyroo, Komli OR DGM has 50% of same publishers…
Am I correct ?
DGM I thought was just an affiliate network (damn this ignorance always gets me.. :p).. should have included yea..
And yes you are right.. most sites use multiple networks and perhaps most of them are providing the same base to the publishers… I think this is where the concept of niche verticals come into play and companies like gosindbad gain an edge.. This again brings in the question of publisher quality… if they are presenting the same base.. where will they bring conversions from?
Maneesh,
RevenueMantra is probably the only multi-channel Ad network,..ie serving Internet, Mobile, Print channels as of now. Check it out at http://www.revenuemantra.com