While I was toiling away building ad sales from premium advertisers, others were laying the foundation to some of the more successful, read sexy, stories this year.
Yesterday, Yahoo! bought the 80% of Right Media it did not own.
Today, capitalizing on the demand for online advertising services, Context Web released ADSDAQ, which is modeled on the NASDAQ principles that allowing publishers to set an “asking price.” This of course, runs counter to a service like Right Media whereby publishers get a cut from the bidding price of the winning advertisers.
Like Right Media, Context Web was one of the many, many companies to hit me up over the years, first at my old company, then at WatchMojo.com.
I spoke to SVP Jay Sears and John Ebbert, Director of Customer Marketing today.
Q: Where does Context Web fit in the lansdcape, amongst Google, Quigo, Industry Brains, etc.
A: ContextWeb is a contextual advertising company. We currently work with 350+ advertisers and over 1,000 publishers including 100+ of the comScore top 250. We reach 54 million unique users each month, over 1 in 4 Americans.
Q: How long has this (ADSDAQ) been in development?
A: ADSDAQ has been in development for two+ years. Our existing scale will allow us to act as traders on behalf of our large advertisers and publishers as we begin to open up the exchange to publishers and advertisers of all sizes via a self service platform.
Q: Yesterday Right Media was in the news, how is this different/similar to RightMedia?
A: ADSDAQ is an exchange for premium inventory, open to everyone, where all traders can set their AskPrice™ and BidPrice™:
· Pricing Control:
ADSDAQ provides pricing control–BidPrice™ for the advertiser and AskPrice™ for the publisher—to both parties for the first time.
· Premium Inventory:
ADSDAQ is an exchange for premium inventory, not remnant. Since the publishers will set their CPM (cost per thousand) AskPrice, the ADSDAQ exchange is a “first stop” for inventory prior to a publisher’s ad network alternatives. Our ContextAd™ page level targeting provides the control to advertisers to make our exchange inventory “brand safe” and eliminate waste.
· Open to Everyone:
ADSDAQ will be open to all publishers and all advertisers, large and small; short tail and long tail. Immediately we are trading on behalf of advertisers and publishers in our existing network business1. This summer we will be opening a self service offering to all publishers and later this year will be doing the same for advertisers. Publishers and Advertisers can Request an ADSDAQ Beta Invitation. More detail on our Internet Advertising Blog.
Q: What impact does the RM / YHOO deal have on your plans for this?
A: We are quickly becoming the leading independent exchange and are the only one focused on premium inventory (not remnant).
Q: Do you see a divergence or convergence between text and display?
A: There will be a convergence between all media formats. The exchange provides the marketplace and ultimately will enable the buying and selling of any format—text, display, rich media, video, mobile.
Q: Planning on moving into display? video?
A: The vast majority of our inventory today is display ads from large national and international brands. We already run video thru various rich media formats such as Pointroll and Eyeblaster.
Q: Do you view the long tail of ad inventory as a major growth area or is it because a network has a hard time accessing premium inventory?
A: Because publishers can set their AskPrice, ADSDAQ acts as “inside sales for the long tail” by delivering pricing control, ad trafficking and ad serving to publishers. ADSDAQ will always produce a better result for the publisher vs. its existing ad network alternatives.
The customers have moved to the Long Tail and ADSDAQ will give advertisers the tools to make the long tail a “clean well-lit place” How is this complementary to Context Web’s core products? We’ll be acting as traders on the exchange for our existing, large advertiser and publisher clients.
Q: Any clients and partners that have signed up yet?
A: All of our current advertisers and publishers will be part of this exchange. This summer we will be opening a self service offering to all publishers and later this year will be doing the same for advertisers. Publishers and Advertisers can Request an ADSDAQ Beta Invitation.
Q: ContextWeb investors include leading venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Updata Partners - any financial info on financing to date, revenue figures etc., you can share?
A: The company has $27.5 million of invested capital. Our current business has grown from zero to 54 million monthly uniques and over 3 billion monthly impressions in two years.
Read more around the Web. I think the ad format agnostic approach is a plus, and the fact that they strive to position themselves in premium content from the get-go is critical. Of note, Context Web’s $27.5M is almost 60% of the funding Right Media had… what does that mean? Whatever you want it to mean, but it is interesting how much money went into some of these companies and the rising tide ride in online advertising is now rising all boats.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 7:27 am
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