This AlwaysOn discussion panel was moderated by Ted Want, a partner from Fenwick and West. Participating were:
Jeff Hirsch, Pres and CEO of Revenue Science; a behavioral targeting specialists working with online advertisers.
David Kidder, CEO of Clickable, which simplifies AdSense-style ad placement for online advertisers.
Jason Glickman, CEO or Tremor Media, one of the leading ad networks and pioneers in video-insert ads (their technology is called QDO).
Jayent Kadambi, CEO of YuMe; Broadband Video Ad Network for publishers; CPM-driven.
Amiad Solomon, CEO of Peer39, a semantic advertising firm. They deliver ad placements are based upon the meaning of the content pages in their content network.
A much-needed discussion of the recently-completed integration of DoubleClick into Google, and the new Yahoo/NPC (the National Newspaper Consortium) ad platform. Lots of discussion and controversy regarding CPM-thinking going to CPA. CPA = Cost Per Action or CPA (sometimes known as Pay Per Action or PPA) is an online advertising pricing model where the advertiser pays for each specified action (a purchase, a form submission, and so on) linked to the advertisement.
Consensus that Ad Networks are bringing online advertising to the scale where Agencies know how to deal with them. Small networks several hundred to several thousand sites; large several hundred thousand sites. Industry healthy, plenty of room for growth.
Discussions about dynamic pricing, perishable inventory, bundling, targeting, pre-rolls, overlays, adbugs, roll-downs, transparency of ad networks re: channel conflict; vertical audience channels. Display advertising migrating to become simpler like self-service advertising (e.g. Google)? Friction between formats. Scale of advertising market; value proposition, adoption friction (user experience/resistance) being the primary friction point. Comparison of how a product placement on “The Today Show” with 9M viewers can move the needle vs online ads still embryonic, but of growing importance.
I was struck by just how fractured and “messy” the online advertising universe in. It is very much a work in progress, and not a very tidy one. What the industry really needs is some big innovation; but the last truly profound innovation in online advertising was made by a little startup called Google. They ripped the original concept of CPM-mode banner advertising and popup ads to shreds, superseding it with a more internet-appropriate CPC-mode sponsored ad delivered with search results and later, across their content network; all predicated upon providing a better search engine and better search experience. Google reinvented online advertising and brought it within reach of millions of small advertisers; but there are many loose ends left hanging. The next chapter should be really something, with all the talent focused on this problem — making online advertising really work.