Top 5 Online Ad Predictions of 2009: Not All Doom & Gloom

No matter which way you look at it, 2008 ended on a down note for the online ad market. However, 2009 is not being viewed by all as doom and gloom. Even in a down market, online advertising will continue to evolve. We here at WidgetBucks think that 2009 will bring about some change, much of it positive, in the online advertising world, including:

• Exchanges will start to weed out arbitrage: Much like Google, exchanges will weed out those who thrive on inefficiencies. Much like Google, exchanges want to make more money and squeezing arbitrageurs is a logical next step once you’ve carved out share.


• Ad nets won't die. In fact, strong ones will gain influence: Vertical focus and inventory on sites that have high engagement will define success

• Social Media advertising and widget use will come of age: Audience targeting emerges to create viable CPC and CPM inventory where remnant ruled before and widgets will come into their own as long as they make money for publishers, create engagement for brands, and provide value for users

• Remnant display networks won’t die: Despite popular belief, networks representing remnant inventory will not go away but they will evolve. We think they will focus on performance based sales. Again it will all be about ROI.

• Targeting won't just be a media sales person’s byword any longer: Real integrated behavioral targeting/affinity/demo/channel targeting will bolster movement of offline ad dollars online.

What changes in online advertising do you think will happen in 2009?

- Kirby Winfield
Chief Revenue Officer
WidgetBucks

WidgetBucks Blog Survey: What Do You Want to Read About?

An interesting study from Forrester Research came out this week, examining how much people trust various online information resources. Not surprisingly, email from people they know tops the list at 77% (unless it's one of those chain emails that you have to forward in an hour or your laptop will explode). BusinessWeek also examined the trend.

What seemed to be most interesting, however, was what appeared on the bottom of the list: corporate blogs. Just 16% of people trust company blogs as a source of information. Most feel corporate blogs are just repackaged press releases, too promotional, or that they don't share unvarnished information. That's probably true in many cases -- and I think it's something that can really improve as blogging goes mainstream.

What's Ahead for the WidgetBucks Blog
In 2009, we are enhancing the WidgetBucks blog to include more writers and contributors, and expand the topics we cover - and to define those topics, we're asking for your help. Please vote for your most desired subjects that you would find most helpful to you as a publisher and we'll focus on including those subjects during the coming year:



In fact, you may have already read a few posts from some additional team members, including Gary Kamikawa, WidgetBucks' VP of Interactive Marketing, who oversees our publisher relations group, as well as Kirby Winfield, our Chief Revenue Officer. Given Kirby's sales focus, his posts will naturally have an advertiser lens over them -- which can be helpful as a publisher to understand what advertisers are seeking. CEO Matt Hulett will also continue to contribute as he did over our first year. You can also read Matt's musings at http://startupwhisperer.com and http://seattle20.com.

So thanks for voting or adding topics we don't have on the list.

- Dean Jutilla
Marketing Director
WidgetBucks

Ad Network Island: A Survival Guide

Kirby Winfield, WidgetBucks' Chief Revenue Officer, is today's featured contributor on Adotas, a premier news publication focused on the Internet advertising and media industry.

In his exclusive post -- "Survivor: Ad Network Island" -- Kirby looks at key legs of the proverbial stool that can make or break an ad network in these uncertain times:

- Proprietary Technology
- Scale and Unique Reach
- Sales Team

Kirby's bottom line advise: As an ad network, take stock in what you ultimately control: your ad network. While that may sound over simplified, this is the time to focus on key initiatives, control spending.

If you want to learn more about ad networks, author and consultant Robert Moskowitz recently provided a nice piece that summaries the types of ad nets out there and a variety of tips on selecting the right ad network for your campaign.

- Dean

What's Your Ad Network's 'Secret Sauce'?

Hi everyone, Kirby Winfield here, WidgetBucks' Chief Revenue Officer.

Some colleagues and I are in New York this week at OMMA Global. Undoubtedly, ad networks will be a topic of the conversation at the show and it got me to thinking of an article I recently came across on Adotas, the interactive advertising news site, titled "Can 314 Ad Networks Really Thrive?"

It takes a close look at the sheer volume of ad networks today, where the industry is headed (what sort of consolidation will there be?) and factors that differentiate one network from another (more on this later).

The article's premise -- the number of ad networks -- makes for an interesting discussion launch pad on the current state of the network space, but in and of itself is a pretty big red herring. Do SEO firms, creative shops, media buyers, or any other online media service cease to proliferate at some arbitrary numerical inflection point? Absolutely not.

In any industry, talented and experienced individuals constantly create new businesses in spaces that have borne fruit in the past. Those who become successful (i.e. scale and staying power) displace the less efficient incumbents, either on the tail or at the head. In healthy economic or nascent growth spurt periods, the number of firms which receive exposure or become part of the accepted set that defines the industry may grow, but as the industry matures this normalizes. I guess one could say it all settles out in the end.

Yet this still raises some interesting questions: What makes a network viable? How do you become one of the “314”? Or better yet, a top 50 ad network?

To that point, the article ranks major differentiators by percentage, according to U.S. Agencies and Advertisers. Here they are the top five:

• 28% Web Inventory Quality
• 27% Targeting
• 11% Site Transparency
• 8% Service
• 8% Optimization

I agree that Quality is tops on the list - no surprise there -- but I'd add four more to the list:

• Scale
• Ad fill
• Specialize/verticalization
• Sales team that knows the space cold

Even so, in this day and age, the attributes listed above are pretty much just the price of entry to the top-end network space. True differentiation comes through innovation. Some networks are on the forefront of behavioral targeting and data mining; others are focused on yield optimization and management; still others are stuck in the tent pole publisher remnant inventory game.

Here at WidgetBucks our own "secret sauce" involves creating engaging, interactive in-page applications that make all types of online inventory more valuable to publishers and more accessible to (and at the end of the day, safer and more comfortable for) brands.

And later this week, WidgetBucks publishers will be hearing a lot more on improvements and expansions around a number items on both the lists above, including targeting, optimization, reporting, and specialization/"verticalization." Stay tuned.

- Kirby