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Media Buyers It’s Your Turn

With many documented cases of publishers reporting drops in ad revenue, now is the time for media buyers to shine. If you still have a job, and still have a client who is in the need of online media, now is your chance to be a hero. And by hero, I actually mean you have the chance to capitalize on the misfortunes of publishers.

For the past few years publishers have been holding the premium price tag over even the most simple of media buys. I know this very well from both sides, as a publisher of a health and fitness destination and as a media buyer on-behalf of clients. The premiums were easy to understand; with good inventory scarce and the digital ad boom well under way, it was the best way to crank up the revenue. All conversations with top tier publishers typically included a “custom” or “big idea” opportunity. It should be obvious that, although you only buy what you want, certain types of desirable inventory was locked away for big budget only media buys. This locked out advertisers who were solely interested in a specific audience within prospective sites.

I am here to announce, and should have months ago, that those days by and large are dead – for now. Media planners all over the internet should be gobbling up severely discounted rates wherever they can. In a regular market planners have the power to dramatically alter any campaign by executing on-target partnerships and inventory buys with publishers, but in this environment they have the power to be a marketing super hero! PlannerMan to the rescue!

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Tags: ad network, AdECN, adsdaq, ADX, exchange, google, Right Media

Posted in Trends | Comments

Product Strategies to Stem the Erosion of Ad Rates

During News Corp’s quarterly earnings call earlier this month, global media mogul Rupert Murdoch explained his long-term position on Internet advertising. He states that the almost infinite increase in ad inventory is putting a constant downward pressure in prices, making it difficult to monetize audiences, especially with ad spending on the decline.

A large chunk of my responsibilities at Yahoo! deal with this exact problem. In an environment where online advertising is becoming a commodity, how do you maximize the selling of premium inventory while using networks and exchanges to monetize the gaps? All while achieving the highest possible rates the market will bear. In an ideal world, exchanges and adservers would maximize network traffic to monetize each impression to its fullest. The truth is that the imbalance between supply and demand, as well as the relative immaturity of exchanges is causing a huge gap, and impressions are selling for bargain bin prices.

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Tags: exchange, monetization, networks, nytimes, product strategy, tech ticker

Posted in Strategy, Trends | Comments