Getting Close to a Completely Automated Model in AdBull

As the title suggests, we've almost completed the development of an automated self-serve advertiser sign-up. This will allow advertisers to sign-up to become AdBull contextual advertisers within the PPC marketplace. If you'd like to stay informed, go to AdBull.com and sign-up for our newsletter. We'll be sending out a blast as soon as it is ready.

Getting It Done

Over the past few weeks we experienced a few set backs as well as accomplished a few feats that have continued to move the new company forward. Of note has been developing relationships with a few people and a few ad networks that have significant footprints on the publisher side. In short, available inventory is increasing at a nice clip.

On the monetization side (advertisers looking to buy the inventory), we're still looking at how to increase our RPC (rev per click). Right now we have many, if not most, of the tier 2/3 ad providers plugged into our system. Essentially we determine what a relevant PPC ad should be then query all of the ad providers and end up displaying the most relevant & highest paying partners ad.

Problem is the tier 2/3 ad providers primarily distribute arbitrage advertisers and have lost the thousands of SMEs that used to be in the system. There are multiple reasons for this - regardless, I NEED HIGHLY RELEVANT ADVERTISERS!!!

While I really wanted to get the model financially stable using third-party ad providers, it looks like we are going to have to go ahead and build our own database of advertisers.

All of this has made me realize just how dominant Google has become and how dependent SMEs and publishers are on their ability to advertise on and display through Google's ad network. While that is great for Google, it really hurts the SMEs because they are not able to be competitive in the bidding process as more and more advertisers jump into the auction.

It will be interesting to see how well received Cursor Marketing and AdBull will be in the SME market. Unlike all of the other ad networks that are competitive with Google (which they all have really already lost the battle) - we own the patents for our ad unit and don't have to be worried about being commoditized by larger companies... It will be fun to watch!

Holy Crap - almost 2 years have gone by!!!

I was going through some initiatives that the new company (Cursor Marketing & AdBull.com) have planned and remembered that a few years ago I started using blogger.com to test blogging platforms. Well right on cue when I went to blogger.com it popped open to my account and was waiting for my next entry.

Well a lot has happened in the almost 2 years since my last post... I finished a business plan, raised a little capital, brought together a team, bought a few patents and launched a few products. One of the most promising in the near-term is AdBull.com - a new contextual ad unit that presents a targeted text-based ad to a user's cursor.

While we've only been launched for a couple of months, we've already tested the product against other contextual solutions (Adsense, Vibrant, Kontera and Infolinks) and are achieving significantly higher click-thru rates than any of those other ad units. While we are still in our infancy, we are plugging along and bringing in a few new publisher partners everyday.

This reminds me of starting FindWhat.com and getting our first few publisher partners... they trickled in but after a few months the momentum of picked up to the point that it was hard keeping up with the new publishers that were signing up.

The next challenge that we had to tackle back then - just like now - is how to monetize the traffic we are generating. Hopefully I have the answer in the next post.

Content, content and more content

Just after my last post - the first week of August - a long awaited trip to Park City had finally arrived, a vacation of sorts. While I had all intentions of continuing to refine my new biz plan and the financial, I honestly planned on taking a week and not looking at industry events.

But there it was - almost everyday - story after story in WSJ, NYTimes and USAToday of how the lack of analytical understanding of relevancy and user intent was limiting revenue generation of some of the worlds most revered companies. These were not exactly the words the the press was using but this is exactly what they were describing.

It is absolutely amazing to see how blind top tier content creation companies let alone 2nd and 3rd tier companies are when it comes to adequately distributing their content while simultaneously increasing relevant and revenues with the advertisements they place on their pages.

Even more amazing is how many of these companies do not try to implement technologies that can help them "see" so they can be smarter and create higher value for themselves and their advertisers. Instead, they just hand over their content and ad inventory to outside companies - large and small - and trust them to 'maximize' the revenue generated from each page. At the same time many of these ad companies are creating competitive products and services thereby increasing their own margins and cannibalizing the revenue from the very companies looking to them for an answer.

As frustrating as this is to me, this is the opportunity for a "smart" technology to come along and help these struggling content creators... just need to get the team organized!

Conetent: Good Stuff versus Who Cares

Over the past few days as I've looked at various online content generating initiatives - both professionally generated and that created by the every day users - it's really sunk in how little, if any, governance is applied to content being posted as factual information.

Historically we've trusted our various media institutions to govern what we consume and believe to be factual statements. After all, the big media companies aren't biased and they would only provide us facts - right?

Fast forward to 2008 - Due to the ubiquity of easy to use publisher platforms we are faced with a growing number of consumer publishers - those everyday people that look for and consume information and then turn around and publisher their own views on what they've consumed. These people (obviously I am one of them) are creating more content than is realistically being consumed.

It is an all out explosion of content - but is it any good?

While I do have some ideas on how to self govern ourselves (i.e. Wikipedia & Knol), it is a large problem as this explosion of content is influencing real people's positions by feeding them opinionated at best or false at worse information and then it spread to others.

I've come to the conclusion that despite my ideas or others to self govern ourselves, what is ultimately going to happen is the market will get BIG, full of self proclaimed experts just as it is doing now and then shrink as people realize/decipher between good resources and those blowhards that are really witting Editorials and gossip gab.

But unfortunately it is going to take many years.

If there is a point to this entry it is merely an effort to call to one's attention that you should proceed with caution as you read information online and try to find multiple references before "buying what they are selling".

Branded Content Sites Back In Favor

This was an interesting read from MediaWeek -

OPA: Ads Perform Better on Branded Content Sites
The report uses Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms, a database of scores that measures ad performance across a wide range of sites and is meant to represent the Internet as a whole

July 30, 2008

-By Lucia Moses

At a time of growing concern that the rise of ad networks is commoditizing branded content, the Online Publishers Association has released a report showing that ads perform better when they’re placed on branded content sites.

The OPA report, titled “Improving Ad Performance Online: The Impact of Advertising on Branded Content Sites,” uses Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms, a database of scores that measures ad performance across a wide range of sites and is meant to represent the Internet as a whole.

The report compares ad effectiveness of branded content sites as represented by the OPA’s membership to MarketNorms, portals and ad networks.

“It’s an absolute fact with online advertising: environment matters,” said OPA president Pam Horan.

Among other findings in the report, when it comes to brand favorability, branded content sites performed 29 percent better than average online performance. For purchase intent, branded sites did 20 percent better, and when it comes to impacting purchase intent among those with household incomes of $75,000 and up, branded sites did 24 percent better. Branded sites also did better when it came to video and sponsorships, according to the report.

But Jeff Ratner, managing partner, digital director, MindShare North America, said that whether a site is considered a branded content one or not may be less relevant to an advertiser than that the site be a relevant environment for its message.

END STORY>>>>>

While I am a HUGE proponent of commercial blogging (i.e. people getting paid to blog) I think this is a direct hit to the massive amount of "less than credible" content/journalism going on in the blogoshere as a whole.

It is interesting to me that many of the bloggers preaching that commercial blogging is "evil" (how original) are many of the same people trying to place other forms of ads on their page and this study is directly showing they are not as valuable.

On the other hand, a commercial blog sponsored by a credible entity typically contains meaningful content to educate the reader on that product at a level far deeper than a basic blog. Which in my opinion is more similar to a topic specific branded site than what a generic blogger produces.