NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> ad servers
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> ad servers
Heidi Kay (hkay_at_flycast.com)
Fri, 18 Dec 1998 08:53:19 -0600 (CST)
Several website owners have been posting pros and cons of
various ad server options. One option that seems to have
generated a lot of interest is ad networks. I (and my
company, Flycast Communications) believe that each website
owner should analyze these arguments carefully and make his
or her own decision about whether to join a network. I
summarize the major points below:
PROS OF AD NETWORKS
o Maximized ad revenues. When you join an ad network, you
open up your site to a large number of different types of
advertisers that would probably be impossible to contact and
pitch on your own. Networks take care of this and streamline
and simplify the sales process.
o Single point of reporting and billing. When you join an ad
network, you do not need to worry about preparing reports
for advertisers, issuing and collecting on bills, and
justifying why your numbers "don't match up" with those of
the advertiser. The network takes care of this too.
o No banner trafficking. Many advertisers like swapping
banners in and out frequently (several times per day). Most
ad networks handle this tedious work automatically,
transparently to you.
o Rich Media without hassle. Many networks such as Flycast
are making great strides towards developing a single, small
chunk of code that allows all the websites on the network to
serve all types of rich media advertisements without having
to debug and reinsert new code for each ad.
CONS OF AD NETWORKS
o If the ad network server (or the Internet between your
server and the ad network server) is temporarily slow, it
can result in broken images or the appearance that your page
is being "held up," waiting for the ad.
o Reduced control over banner creative. With some ad
networks, you do not really know what type of banner may
show up next on your site. To address this issue, many ad
networks, including Flycast, have developed a banner
blocking solution for website owners.
o Rich Media can be unpredictable. One of the limitations of
the Internet is the great diversity of website technologies,
browser versions, operating systems, and Internet connection
speeds. This creates a real technical challenge for ad
networks looking to deliver a Rich Media solution that works
on virtually any site on the web. Flycast is among the
companies that is addressing these issues and is currently
the only solution that provides access to a network of Rich
Media-enabled websites.
Many ad networks allow member websites to allocate a
percentage of inventory towards the network and reserve the
rest for private sale. Such a combination plan is often the
best route. In cases where you perceive ad serving to be
slow, or you've sold out your inventory to another
advertiser, then the best thing is to direct impressions
away from the ad network. In cases where you have a spike of
impressions that were not sold upfront, or your top
advertiser pulled the IO at the last minute, then you should
probably direct those otherwise unsold impressions to the ad
network. In either case, we believe an advertising network
is an essential component of a complete ad serving solution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Heidi Kay
Manager, Product Marketing
Flycast Communications Corporation
181 Fremont Street, Suite 120
San Francisco, CA 94105
tel: 415-913-1568
fax: 415-977-1009
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