AOL Reportedly Eyes The Indian Ad Network Pie And Why it Might Get The Biggest Piece

If a recent exclusive is to be believed AOL is set to bring its ad network – Advertising.com to India. The launch, which might happen in a couple of months itself can have a big impact on the already crowded Indian Online Advertising industry.

Through a spate of acquisitions which included advertising.com, AOL had formed Platform-A as a separate subsidiary to lead its online advertising initiatives. The launch in all probability is opening the Indian arm of Platform A.

Over the last two weeks enough buzz has been made about Indian Ad Networks, and the new vertical networks coming up. In fact, a new ad network focusing on the gaming niche is being launched by Games2Win – innovatively named Invizi Ads. And this news of AOL getting itself into the canvas certainly changes the picture in a big way.

What sets AOL’s platform apart is its media reach. That instantly gives it a major push to go along with the brand name. In fact, AOL presents the biggest brand competition to Google’s Adsense which is the number 1 network in India. AOL has often laid claims that Platform A is the biggest publisher with over 3 billion ad impressions served daily (Feb . Data). AOL itself has over 90 premium properties online it can leverage exclusively. Whether it would help its efforts in India though is another question.

The biggest advantage besides the brand power is the model that advertising.com works on. It specializes in buying space on sites and then resells it advertisers who want to reach a specific type of consumer. AOL has resources at its end to do this better than many other networks currently, after all it has spent close to a billion dollars just to acquire the three ad platforms that make Platform A.

Add to this it’s existing relations with major advertisers which include big spending production houses and what we see is a potent mix of high spending advertisers and what can be called niche publisher base because of the model.

Again, whether AOL will follow a similar model is again speculative. Medianama reports that they might be looking at targeting Indian publishers with content specific channels, so perhaps a separate model is in place.

This tweet should put the sentiment in its proper perspective.

AOL with the model advertising.com had followed becomes the driving force, like what the tweet mentions. And therein lies its core advantage.

If AOL does look at generic content channels, that leaves room for vertical niche networks to grow while perhaps putting generic players in a tight spot. Since beginning to focus on online advertising instead of being a service provider, AOL has been steadily gaining ground as a profit point led by Advertising.com, before moving on to Platform A. Its India strategy would certainly be interesting to watch.