Disqus - Latest Comments for Oliver Thylmann

Re: Time for something new in online advertising

Oliver Thylmann — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:09:25 -0000

Thanks for pointing me to the term VRM as it might explain even more what we are doing with Adcloud than Performance Marketing Exchange does. Having previously built one of the biggest financial performance marketing networks and then having adapted this to the local advertising space, we have learned a lot on how advertisers and publishers really tick, and this is what Adcloud is becoming. A way for these two to really work with each other.

The goals of both parties are clear:

* publishers want to earn higher cpms, have better yield-management, transparency and control
* advertisers want an efficient way to buy well converting traffic in high volume

For this to happen, publishers and advertisers need to bound together under one platform that is driven by performance metrics so that everyone can talk to everyone but doesn't have to. Agency X want 10.000 clicks that are good, not caring about targeting, and Publisher Y want part of the pie knowing that he alone is not the entire pie.

Taking a cue from the VRM list on Wikipedia:

1. Give them a personal tool
2. It all starts with an advertiser that wants to know the publishers she works with but not be bound to one or having to talk to each one seperately (more or less connecting once and then forgetting about it)
3. Publishers need to be able to leverage their advertiser relationships
4. You need to subplant it with relationships that guide easier negotiations going forward
5. Advertisers have full visibility and can integrate campaigns from outside of the network
6. Some customers will want to buy clicks, other go for leads sharing more data but getting more measurable performance
7. ok
8. Through having one platform, performance is optimized platform wide in the best interest of all parties based on the shared information. This also allows for better optimization going forward by finding the real data points that matter
9. Set them free to do what they want
10. The ad server is amazon aws based on standard formats for products allowing for integration into additional systems and growth from outside of the network

I am amazed how much it fits. The only thing I am not fully buying into is the idea of giving the user control of their data. We fully have that at Ormigo, the local part, and yes it is a very nice thing, but you will not get a mass of people to do it. What you can do through integration of performance data across a wide network, to track anonymous data to be able to better target your performance based ads. So no email spamming but ads on sites. And there you take the approach of unimposing text links, not hurting publishers branding business and not hurting the user too much. From there you go by just analyzing the underlying data that you collect for those data points that have a meaning. One thing that still amazes me is that most networks out there are running image ads.

Anyway, thanks for the post. :)

Re: Time for something new in online advertising

Oliver Thylmann — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:38:22 -0000

@nic ... fully understood, but at this time this just does not work. People don't run in your door in the thousands and millions to allow you to target them for ads. Just look at Beacon, or a simple change in the TOS here at StudiVZ which needed to remove much of the targeting bit. Often the problem is that people do not understand that their data is not sold but simply used in a controlled environment. And that use can happen with a less clear consent.

I mean Attentiontrust tried it with a very open system. Root Markets actually wanted to use that data and are a normal lead exchange now. The idea of giving people something for their data is something that you do not need pre-consent for "Order Fortune and get an MP3 Player" is still there. Performance wise you see huge amounts of ads here in Germany for private health insurance way cheap, because people register and you have bad conversions afterwards, but it is still better than running highly targeted correct ads with correct prices in the ads. We're not doing it because it's not what we believe in, but it is still something that is out there. And if publishers want highest CPM, then they will go down that road. Otherwise we would presume they are thinking long-term strategy...

Oliver

Re: Time for something new in online advertising

Oliver Thylmann — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:00:27 -0000

@nic but that is quasi what Attention Trust was, excluding the value bit ;)

But ok, you think more along the lines of any web service (e.g. mybloglog) that delivers value and collects data next to it (mybloglog) and then tells you that it can now deliver you more value if you agree to the data being shared with e.g. all of yahoo!. Not sure though if that is not already the case with mybloglog ;)

But it probably needs to be something totally disconnected to the idea of collecting data. A learning system that then asks for permission to use that learning for targeting.

This makes it majorly expensive though because you need oodles of users before your monetize, and to not have a backlash, you need to be clear from the getgo that you are doing this to collect data. ... still need to think about this I think.