BtoB Media Business - April 2011 - (Page 13)

Sales & Marketing In-image ads developing IDG TechNetwork sets up partnership to offer the latest option in contextual advertising AD VANTAGES SALES & MARKETING The end of the one-stop shop? n January, Wright Ferguson Jr. took charge of AdForum.com, an online community for the advertising industry, as president-USA. Prior to joining AdForum.com, he was president of Ferguson & Associates, a sales and marketing consultancy, and spent 15 BIO years as exec WRIGHT VP-group pubFERGUSON lisher at JR. Adweek. President-USA, MB: How do AdForum.com you think the relationship between marketers and ad agencies is changing? Ferguson: There are few important points on what’s not changing. The musical chairs of agencies and clients switching partners is crazier than ever, and one of the main reasons is the CMO has a tenure of under three years, [so] when the new CMO comes in, out go the old agencies. But there are some benefits [to the constant switching of agencies], because there’s all this specialization in the agency world now, too, [digital, search, PR] and the old days of the one-stop agency that could handle all this stuff are almost gone. MB: How do you intend to build the AdForum.com brand for the ad and marketing industries? Ferguson: Our growth will be part of their growth and use of our platform. We have a variety of products coming to market, including an affiliate program, that gives us the ability to put our content on the sites of marketer associations, and Agency Radar, where you can monitor the latest activities of an agency that you’ve got your eye on. B more inventory on these sites—with people anner advertising, in-text advertising, engaged, in context, looking at the photo itin-stream advertising. Business media self and being able to put the message in front companies face a number of options for of where their eyeballs are—could span how best to monetize their websites and boost across the b-to-b industry,” Chenard said. their ad inventory without alienating readers. He said that the click-through rate across Now they can add another one to the list: in- Image Space Media’s ad network is 0.9%, image advertising. compared with about 0.2% for a standard In-image advertising, which allows pub- banner ad. lishers to serve contextual ad messages when “The real ‘secret sauce’ to what this space users roll over a photo or other image on a is doing is that it’s very hard for a computer to website, can command higher CPMs and read a photograph and tell you what it’s a picclick-through rates than traditional online ad- ture of,” Longo said. “They’ve figured out vertising because it is user-initihow to do that.” ated. While in-image ads have Image Space Media is been used in consumer advercompeting against GumGum tising for about three years, Inc., an in-image ad network they are now starting to creep catering to consumer cominto b-to-b media markets. panies, and Pixazza Inc., IDG TechNetwork, an on- A demo on Image Space among others. line network of technology Media’s website shows what Pixazza said recently that an in-image text and image ad websites and blogs, in late Feb- looks like. the number of publishers in ruary announced a partnerits ad network grew 15 times ship with Image Space Media, which provides from November through March, to more than in-image advertising programs, to offer in-im- 1,500 publishers. age campaigns on its network. The company, which started in 2008 and is So far, more than 30 sites in the IDG Tech- funded, in part, by Google Ventures, attracts Network have started to offer in-image ads, 79 million unique monthly visitors, according said Peter Longo, CEO of IDG TechNetwork. to Chas Edwards, chief revenue officer, who is “We’re getting a good price for those ads also in charge of publisher development. right now,” Longo said, adding that IDG Publishers in Pixazza’s ad network extend TechNetwork will split the revenue with Im- over several consumer and b-to-b markets, age Space Media. “What’s new for advertisers such as small business, technology and travel. is that they never had the opportunity to The company offers several different types place their messages inside of an image before, of in-image ad products, including Informaand what’s new for our publishers is that they tion Cards, which upon roll-over display denever had the opportunity to monetize the tails about the objects inside the picture; and images on their sites before.” Pixazza Lite, display ads activated when a Image Space Media, which debuted in 2008, user rolls over an image that appear at the bothas more than 8,000 sites in its advertising net- tom of the image. work with 70 million unique monthly visitors. “All publishers are interested in the Infor“We’re opening up a new set of inventory, mation Cards because those both enhance especially in the case of business publishers, product experience and drive higher engagemany of which have a limited audience and a ment levels, so there’s a benefit to the publisher limited opportunity to hit them,” said Jesse beyond just the CPM,” Edwards said. “The Chenard, CEO of Image Space Media, who card experience gives us an opportunity to proadded that he was currently in talks with an- vide content that’s relevant to the image, that is other b-to-b technology publisher. He would useful for the business reader, the IT reader, the not name the company. corporate reader, on the other end, as they are “The idea of being able to open up 10% contemplating purchase decisions.” BY MATTHEW SCHWARTZ I —M.S. mediabusinessonline.com | April 2011 | Media Business | 13 http://www.AdForum.com http://www.adforum.com http://www.adforum.com http://www.AdForum.com http://www.AdForum.com http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - April 2011

Btob Media Business - April 2011
Contents
Down Is Up
Farm Journal Media Takes Home the Grand Neal
Publishers Step Up Investments in Lead-Gen Capabilities
Tapping New Technologies
Sales & Marketing
Carving a Niche
Registration Conundrum
Events
People
Benchmarks
Powerful Media Brands, Powerful Industry Advocates

BtoB Media Business - April 2011