Over the past few years, Ad Networks and their cousins, Site
Representation houses have firmly established themselves as part of
the media landscape. Now their status seems to be underfire, with many
of them ducking for cover against an onslaught of bad press and
partner’s re-evaluating their positions.
For their partners, working with an Ad Network or Site Rep house has
had a lot of advantages. Both publishers and advertisers benefit from
the instant economies of scale available.
The advertisers they would be gain access to an established network of
sites, without the hassle of having to build direct relationships.
Advertising would be available at preferential rates, based on the
overall buying power of the network rather than the clients individual
budget, the network would also optimise to aim for the best return
back for the advertiser.
For site owners as well there were plenty of reasons to deal with an
ad network. Access to their advertisers meant that they could rely
less on direct sales, and whereas advertisers benefit from the
combined buying power of the network, publishers benefit from the
combined selling power.
The logic therefore is simple. Why is it then that there appears to be
an increasing number of stories that site owners are moving away from
traditional ad networks?
To us here at on-e, there doesn’t appear to a single reason why ad
networks are no longer quite the flavour of the month. More it appears
that there is a combination of factors that may be making site owners
reconsider their position.
Firstly for many media owners, their web properties are becoming
increasingly mission critical. Traditional publishers have found that
offline publications are having to contend with falling volumes of
sales, subscriptions and advertising revenue.
This has given increasing prominence to their online offerings, and
media owners are keen to ensure that they are getting the best yield
for their inventory. Bringing sales in house would appear to offer a
better way of maintaining and protecting rates, whilst building up
awareness of the site and retaining control of the inventory.
For the smaller and medium sized players, there has perhaps been a
feeling that they have been overlooked with the networks concentration
on their favourite sites and the all important comscore top 100. This
has meant that many have felt that they have missed out on the premium
rates available, making do with the incremental or backfill budget.
As well as the move to take advertising back in house amongst certain
of the larger players, other solutions are coming onstream which offer
media owners potentially better rewards coupled with more control.
What are talking about here?
For premium players new initiatives such The Rubicon Project offer
more hassle free ways of making the most of their inventory. For
others, the likes of Simply.com and Dapper.net allow similar levels of
brand protection with more automated ad serving and revenue streams,
coupled with a promise of better matching with relevant content.
Despite some headlines, the move away from networks to alternate
solutions is still more of a trickle than a flood. It is likely though
once a number of publishers start to feel the benefit that the word
will spread. This though depends on the other solutions of living up
to their promise.
Of course we here at on-e are offering our publishers the joy of a
more automated, hassle free approach with access to a great range of
advertisers, give us a call to find out more…
Rob Kelly