Arguably the greatest strength of online marketing is its ability to generate quantifiable results. Specific to online media/display advertising, our strategies often involve the use of ad networks to achieve those results. Put simply, an ad network is an online media vendor that represents hundreds or thousands of Web sites with available advertising space. And most of these networks offer numerous targeting methods across their content sites.
In a recent interview with Tom Hespos, President of Underscore Marketing and a regular columnist for iMedia Connection, our own Mike Pocci confirmed many of Rosetta’s opinions and best-practices in relation to ad networks and targeting.
Mike Pocci: Much like today’s consumers, online marketing firms are bombarded with the choice of which ad networks to employ. What are some key differences between these networks that can help planners decide which ones are right for their clients?
Tom Hespos: The best ones concentrate on getting to the right prospect at the right time. Realistically, anyone with great relationships or the ability to build them can put together a wide-reaching ad network within a year or two. Reach isn’t really the name of the game anymore. It’s trying to figure out when and how to reach all the people who are potentially reached by a network in the right time, in the right environment, and with the right extension of value.
Tom has a good point. Precise targeting is vital for connecting with the most qualified prospective customers for your product. And ad networks are a great channel through which to implement those targeting technologies; in particular, behavioral targeting (BT), which serves advertising only to those users who have exhibited certain online behaviors (sites visited, pages/content viewed, search patterns, etc.).
Mike Pocci: When it comes to BT, do you have any preferred media partners? If so, what are their greatest strengths, and how do they prove that they’re doing it right?
Tom Hespos: I have a lot of favorites. Many of them are situational – I use them only in certain situations to solve certain problems. A lot of that has to do with targeting methodology and data. As a BT network, you really have to have a lot of actionable data, so that advertisers can target ads the way they want to and still be able to do so at scale.
In other words, it’s terrific if you can target ads for big screen LCD TVs to people based on what they’ve looked at online. But if you have that kind of information on only one out of every few thousand people your network encounters online, it’s not going to do you any good. That’s the classic scale problem many BT networks run into.
We’re always looking forward to these exciting developments in ad network and targeting capabilities, and we are continually learning more about them. Contact us to find out more about media placement and ad network opportunities.
