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Why Are Publishers Creating Their Own Ad Networks? And Which Publishers In India Can Join The AdNetwork Game?
(2 votes, average: 2.5 out of 5)
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LinkedIn is soon to launch its own adnetwork ofcourse in collaboration with ad network Collective Media (which targets high-end media sites) reports Techcrunch. This isn’t the first time a large publisher in the US has gone into launching its own ad network. Recently even technorati had launched its own ad network for blogs in the US.
Whats interesting is that as soon as a publisher sees good traction and becomes considerably large they prefer to launch their own ad networks rather than rely on standalone networks to monetize their inventory. Given this trend a huge number of ad networks have come up. This trend was started by Google via adwords and extended to Yahoo acquiring overture and MSN announcing adcentre. Then the stanalone popular sites in the US like Technorati, Glam which have a focussed audience and a network of sites. There was also facebook and myspace that announced an adnetwork like model late last year but beacon got a lot of flak and myspace platform is still to see the light of the day. But nonetheless the intentions to start a network are still there.
And its no surprise why because the ad network market is set to boom if the stats given below are to be believed:
Question is why are popular sites choosing to launch their own ad networks?
1) Older models like CPC, CPM dont work - Most of these newer sites are built more around user engagement than impressions and therefore impressions isn’t a great metric to just ad roi by and hence these sites are better creating their own ad networks to highlight the best models for advertisers.
2) Niche/Premium Audience/Targetting - Many of these standalone sites have either niche or premium segment which cannot be price by clicks or impressions because is not how many clicks but who is the person who is clicking. They provide a focussed TG and can also target better as they know their audience.
3) Control on Ad Technology/Advertisers & Revenue - Recently rediff got some flak for a indecent ad on one of its pages and thats what happens when you choose an adnetwork and forget to monitor it. Having your own ad network means better control on technology, advertisers and revenue.
4) Better Understanding of Advertisers - Given your own ad network on can analyse not only self traffic but also other similar site traffic for understanding what may work best for an advertiser.
5) Better/Customized ad models for other Publishers - Being a publisher yourself you can provide better ad models for other publishers as you know your space well and have understood what works.
India has also been part of this trend. Just recently Games2win launched an adnetwork for gamers called inviziads.com. But otherwise most adnetworks are coming from the media buyers stable i.e. the online advertising agencies like Webchutney (which launched 2 ad networks), Interactive avenues Admagnet, Ishir Digital’s TonicTag, PerceptKnorigin’s Adchakra, Quasar’s Tyroo. There are also only ad network companies like Komli (which owns a property in loanraja.com) and Ozone (which was funded by IDG). There are also international players like AOL’s advertising.com which plan to enter the Indian Market.
So though quite a few publishers are still to launch their own ad networks.
Which are the Indian Publishers that can launch their own adnetworks?
The Big Three in Classified Space and the seem to be in an Ideal position:
1) The Naukri group with sites like naukri.com, 99acres.com, jeevansaathi.com, brijj.com, studyplaces.com and shiksha.com is well placed to either acquire or build its own ad network which can further extend to other publishers as well.
2) The Shaadi group with Shaadi.com, makaan.com, fropper.com and astrolife.com looks in a good position as well.
3) The BharatMatrimony group (Consim Info) which has sites like bharatmatrimony.com, indiapropety.com, loanwala.com, indialist.com, indiautomobile.com.
4) Rediff.com - Which had P4C but which did not extend itself to other publishers beyond the rediff platform. It will be interesting to see if the same is relaunched.
5) Web18 Group - Web18 with its huge network of sites and now also with a horizontal portal in in.com is very well placed to launch a generic ad network.
What do readers think? Would we see publisher driven ad networks in India?
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Well said. Ad networks are blooming and moreover the inventory that they have is also similar. However, among all these is rise in online video ads thats picking up pace.
I have been reading a lot about how online video ads are getting better ROI compared to TV commercial. A few days back one article in The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121803438950516993.html?mod=SmallBusinessMain_feature_articles) caught my interest where quite a lot was said about the phenomenon of online video ads and how companies like Jivox (http://www.jivox.com/gallery.html) are providing free platform to small and medium sized business to come up with video ads.
This is very inspiring that start ups and smaller companies can cash on this ongoing boom without having to stretch their budget.
However, do you think that online video ads will be able to replace TV commercial as the mainstay of advertising?
@Max Dickinson: I dont think online video can replace TV in the near future. It would take atleast 10 years for that to happen. Also there wont be anything like TV and online as the technology would be internet which will rule only the devices would be different be it TV, mobile or desktop
Rajiv, the stats you have shown can indeed be believed. I am working with this Ad network company that serves social networking applications (http://www.adparlor.com/) and impression growth has been staggering (>10X in last 3 months).
thnx
amit
PS: We are looking for people who have good connections into the media buyer community in India. If anyone is interested in selling Ad inventory for us in India please ping me at nandab25atyahoo.com.
Good post. I think you are mostly on the right track in saying that big media properties have built their own ad networks and the points evaluated are valid. And it’s fair enough to assume few more bigger properties would build their own ad networks. Well what google started as a benchmark for the online industry long back has been now widely adopted by many organizations. It’s like this, advertisers have had the option of Billboards, Banners, TV Commercials etc as the offline media and mostly the budget used to get divided amongst them.
However, now with Internet on the way of becoming a part of a mainstream media, every advertiser would want to milk that.
With multiple ad networks, advertisers will have better understanding of their TG segmentation and more options to optimize their online spend. Also, this will kill the monopolistic ways of online advertising right now dominated by google.
Traffic and content with relevance will rule the audience be it Video, Music, text, banner etc.
And ya I agree to your point that it will only be Internet and the devices will vary be it TV, PC, Hand held etc.
It’s all about money! Why would a publisher pay cut to third party ad network when they can attract advertisers on their own and keep all the advertising money for themselves instead of sharing it with a middleman like Google or Komli? It works well for advertisers too as they can better target the niche audience.
Online media industry is moving towards a television like model where each publisher sells inventory on his own and then there are so many of them that advertisers have to rely on media buying agencies to negotiate with so many publishers.
@yash/sachin/amit - Thanks for commenting - Agree with you Yash.
Just to add People Interactive already runs an International Ad network with selling office in UK where they are even buying International inventory of many Premium news properties in India.
Ad networks which are advertiser aligned are able to grow much faster as compared to publisher aligned for instance advertising.com is able to grow more from being performance aligned and using non AOL properties for minting performance accounts.
Everyone wants to launch ad network, should think of the term again
Its an excellent option , but there will only be certain types of sites which can go into this area. While the advantages are generic for everyone, its only possible really with sites which command a ‘pull’ in the market as far as advertisers are concerned.
One can either tie up with a variety of sites or those very similar to yours. In the case of the latter having a collective media kit ensures price points while at the same time increasing traffic.
There can be fewer better combinations than a high degree or relevancy and high number of visitors , a collaboration with similar sites ensure that you start building up on volumes as well (since the inventory will be seen as a collective being) allowing one to not only adopt traditional models such as CPC or CPM but by default one transforms the inventory into being very advertiser centric as well thanks to the combination which has been achieved..
I think you’re right on with points 3 and 5. The rediff debacle is a prime example of what happens when you set up and ad network and take a vacation. By starting their own ad network publishers have complete control of what their valued users see (and conversely, what they don’t see).
Well, as a publisher of a local, geography specific newsmagazine, Citizen Matters, we are exploring various ad networks - but find most of them serve standard ads (travel/finance/matrimonial etc.)
Ads that are from local advertisers would be more of a value add for our readers. That’s missing.
I may have to consider starting a local ad network too