AdViking

AdViking is having a month of zooming down on various verticals* and naturally a side effect has been the tracking of relevant items. Which is why AdViking just came across the news that another ad network has been launched.

BBN (Business-to-Business Network) is going to be run by WPP’s 24/7 Real Media on behalf of traditional B2B publishers: Cygnus Business Media, Nielsen Business Media, Reed Business Information and McGraw-Hill. Only numbers being touted is the network will have a reach of 10 million unique visitors a month.

Why it’s interesting:

• It’s now safe to say that the indy ad network is the new black has jumped the shark but AdViking still believes there is more to come, e.g.: The major US leading verticals (i.e.: autotrader.com, careerbuilder.com and move.com) should band together to create something very powerful.
• Like, quadrantONE, the ad network created by newspaper co’s: Gannett Co., Hearst Corp., the New York Times Co. and Tribune Co, this is cool because we’re finally seeing traditional publishers start making some serious moves to protect their futures.

What doesn’t seem to be so great:

It appears that the network will only be for display advertising, which doesn’t really lend itself to a typical B2B advertiser. It is stated though that the hope with the network is to grow B2B spend, not just move it around. This might be possible but as the network will really be about bulking out the inventory to provide appealing packages to Agencies, the real opportunity is going for a 3rd party to be to come along and optimise the distressed inventory.

*Vertical Zoom

AdViking gets to have the unique opportunity of being able to focus on different verticals through participation in various events:

• B2B - Speaking on Vertical Search at Magazine 2008
• Classifieds - Facilitation of a workshop on Monetising Search at the ICMA General Meeting in Brussels
• Local - Participation in the Local Search Summit in Oslo

As posted early last month Google finally opened it’s barriers and let advertisers ‘back in’ to bid against brand names. Whether it really was to do with the ‘Mr Spicy‘ ruling in the States or, as we suggested at the time, more to do with the bottom line, advertisers have flooded back to take advantage of the levelled playing field… Or have they… ?

One thing that Google have made clear is that, unlike Yahoo! and MSN, they will not allow brand names to be used in the written ads. So this causes one obvious and one not-so-obvious problem.

The obvious first: you can’t use the brand name! So, for example, if Peugeot have protected Peugeot then you can’t advertise ‘Peugeot’ in the advert unless authorised. Therefore you have to use tautology… “Brand New Pug” or “NewPeugeots” or “The Entire Range of the car you want”.

The not-so-obvious is more interesting… As you probably know - Google measures adverts by a Quality Score, this score has affects both the Minimum Bid as well as the Ad Position, meaning a poor performing ad must bid higher to achieve the same position.

Whilst this makes sense, one of the key variables to decide the quality score is … ad relevance… And the main defining factor is using keywords in ads.

Therefore, say you’re bidding on ‘Peugeot’, or phrases including ‘Peugeot’, and cannot use the word ‘Peugeot’ then relevance will drop, thereby increasing minimum bid and lowering position.

So the real test of where Google sits will be how (or whether) it adjusts Quality Score in light of it’s own policies.

Check AdViking for the latest on episode two of the trademark wars… ‘The Brands Strikes Back”!

Cox Enterprises, a family run media company with reported $15 billion of revenue, has announced that they are going to purchase Adify, a niche ad network enabler, for $300 million.

Russ Fradin, Adify CEO, has posted some insights into the deal, the main take-away is that Russ and the rest of the management team are sticking around - very different from what happened with Quigo then!

On rumoured revenues of $7 million in 07 and on track for $35 millon in 08, the ticket price is an extreme multiple and one that a lot of attention will focus on. AdViking things actually the deal is very progressive by Cox (probably the benefits of being family run!).

The main reason that AdViking thinks this is that with the consolidation and domination by GYM, having preferred access to an advertising technology will ensure that as the continued growth of digital advertising occurs, Cox are in a great position to protect and extend their revenues.

AdViking is also very interested in the deal as it is further validation of the need for indy players in the value chain, also see the recent investment in Federated Media.

From looking at the recent comScore data on US ad networks, AdViking would put some money on Burst, ContextWeb and some of the others to go. It also does start to put a very interesting spin on what the opportunity for OpenX could be.

In an interesting week when Microsoft is pushing ahead with the Yahoo attempt, the Ray Ozzie thumbprint is felt in the cloud, the deal to purchase Fast Search & Transfer (disclosure below) has been announced to have been closed.

Now the deal has closed, Microsoft will be able to deliver on the strategy that Bill Gates outlined in his final keynote at the Sharepoint Conference 2008.

Disclosure:  Some of AdViking is employed by FAST and Microsoft.  More details on About.

On the back of Google’s positive Q1 announcement, we had some good news from Yahoo! when they announced a much better than expected Q1.   Seeking Alpha has a good breakdown of both Google and Yahoo but interesting points are that Google’s International revenue (51%) was higher than US and that Yahoo! was bolstered (understatement for $401 million padding) by it’s stake in Alibaba.

Other news is that WSJ reports that the Google/Yahoo AdWords trial has gone well and could find Yahoo an additional $1 billion annually.  Though taking this kind of thinking to it’s logical comparison of what Google has done for AOL and it must be tempting to consider, but once upon a time AOL had 30% of the share market and is now below 5%!