AD blocker a decisive?

It's sometime now, quite abuzz surrounding the wide spread of Ad blocker softwares.And due to this, Online players are much worried about the gaining functionality and popularity of Ad blockers..

But Ad blockers a real threat to online advertising?

What do you think when something is ruining your 13.7Bill display advertising market?
Perhaps I’ll say NO for now. But I cannot deny the fact that the situation might soon change.

What is the possible outcome from Ad Blockers?

• It Limits the reach of Audience for the online marketers (Users blocking ads)
• Leads to revenue loss of Ad server providers (Impressions does not count)
• Again, revenue loss to the publisher and also losses advertisers (No conversions)

So, the list continues...

To stress on, recently launched firefox addon "Ad block Plus" is creating panic waves as it blocks about 90% of ads on a website. I tried it and found blocking all 3 rd party ad server links and re-direct links. It works well with Firefox, so I dug out on details about Firefox.See the image below the market share of all web browsers

Provided by: www.netapplications.com

The Firefox share is 14.85%, the total online population is 6 bill, so we have 976 mill Firefox users, which is Huge population. Among this 976Mil how many users have active ad blocker is my Question? Unfortunately, unable to get the answer.

How do we override this problem?

Many publishers have created redirects to pages asking Firefox visitors to disable Ad blockers so as to see their website. Some Publishers annoyed to such extent that they have totally blocked their Firefox visitors.I see this situation similar to the one online advertising industry faced in the development of pop up blockers. Lots of pop up blocking tools have come, but equal amount of anti blocking code has been associated with pop up ads to override.

Online players must realize the importance of breaking this clutter. Publisher/Ad server should associate Anti blocking codes along with actual ads for display. When new ad blocker comes, proportionally Anti ad blocking software should be updated.

I, strongly feel this is the wakeup call for all online players/online advertising governing body, to think about this serious problem in the making and help us with an effective Antidote.

Ad Serving on YouTube

You Tube has started to ad serve.Mainly after much speculations among advertisers and YouTube fans, the GoogleTube now officially started their adverts.

So far on the site, below were the ad units, I have noticed

• 300x35 gif/jpeg banner
• 300x250 gif/jpeg banner
• In line video along with a 300x250 companion gif/jpeg banner

All the adverts are pushed through Doubleclick's DFP.I have taken few screen shots of the same

• A small banner ad below the main video content is displayed(as highlighted at the left hand side), refer screen shot below

• A click on this banner ad, would expand to a Video ad and starts to play which is clickable to the advertiser's page

• A static companion 300x250 banner is displayed at the right hand throughout the main video, which is again clickable
  

Pros:

• Video ads here are less intrusive in nature, and video plays ONLY when the user clicks on the small banner below main video

• When a user clicks on the ad, the acutal video is paused

• YouTube is serving ads only on the popular videos which are rich in quality.Advertisers get big relief by this, as many were doubting, whether would their adverts be displayed on all lousy video uploads by Youtube users

Pubmatic-an ad network optimizer?

Komli, an upcoming ad network has released a new system which works as an ad network optimizer and it is known as PubMatic. PubMatic is a software application which lets you push ads of various ad networks on to your website/blogs.Currently it allows Google Ad sense, Yahoo Publisher ad network, ValueClick and Komli.PubMatic would monitor the performance of every ad network and the best performing Ad network would be auto optimized there by resulting in maximum ROI.Beyond optimizing ad network, this system also optimizes the Ad slot frame, color of the Advert, reports to compare performance between ad networks.Isn't this cool?

How to use it?

• Just visit PubMatic and sign up, it is FREE
• Select the Ad networks you want run
• Select the Ad slot size and instruct PubMatic if you want to auto optimize color
• Once all this is done, you have an option to generate PubMatic Ad tag, Click and generate the tag
• Copy this Tag and paste it on your web site/blog(It takes 90min for the PubMatic tag to go live)
  

It is apparently clear that PubMatic would provide

• Easy interface for publishers to place ad networks and auto optimizing ad networks for best delivery and increase revenue
  
• Mutually beneficial for the complete gamut of parties involved such as advertisers, publishers and ad network
• PubMatic accelerates the volume of publishers to their ad networks
  

Though all this sounds good, I still have a doubt

If a publisher implements multiple optimized pub matic ad Tags at various slots on a single page(say example 728x90 and 300x250), will not the publisher see 728x90 Advert belonging to a different Ad network(example Google Adsense) and 300x250 of a different ad network(yahoo Publisher network) on the same page at a same time?

Problem is that, ad networks like Adsense, Yahoo, amazon does not allow publishers to place any other ad networks adverts except them.Publishers who violates, will have their subscriptions suspended.I am unsure if PubMatic has an intelligence system incorporated into PubMatic which ensures that different Adverts of different Ad networks is not displayed at the same time on a same page.

Currently, PubMatic is available for the First 100 publishers on a First come first serve basis.I got my subscription. I tried pubmatic its easy and kool. I have configured PubMatic to suit my Blog,and shortly would run Optimized PubMatic Adverts.

Cookies-A must know

Cookies is a must know functionality for all online ad traffickers.Penned down few lines would help you to understand what are cookies and what role does it plays in online advertising

Quick Tour of Cookies

Cookies to me is a program which would help website to store little information about the user's behaviour on the website in the cookies folder of your hardrive.Cookies helps an user to have a faster web experience.

Types of Cookies

• Session Based Cookies
• Persistent Cookies

Session Based Cookies:These are the temporary cookies which would be stored until you close your browser.Every web browser has settings which can be used to allow this or block.

Persistent cookies:These stays in your hardware little longer than your session based cookie.Usually the lifetime of this cookies are determined by the website which stores this cookie.Normaly the cookies content would carry its expiry date.Even we can delete this cookies either from web browser or directly from the temporary folder.

Pros:

• Cookies helps us achieving Frequency capping that we set in the ad server.
  
• For e-commerce sites, cookies helps to a major extent by storing informations regarding transactions.(e.g)After adding an item to a cart, when you move next to check out, without cookies, the website would not register what item if you have added to the cart
• Faster web user experience

Cons:

• Cookies may lead to revenue loss to the ad serving companies if not properly cachebusted because when a user visits already visited page, the page content along with online campaigns would be retrieved from cookies and hence revenue loss to the ad serving company
  
• Improper Cookie handling, would result in impressions discrepancies when we use 3rd party ad server
  

Growing Ad Network a threat to Ad server Vendors

In the last 1 year, our online advertising market has seen lots of Ad network being established, and few other international ad network eying to start up their operations in potential market.Given this situation, publishers are of great demand and the ad networks does all it can to attract the publishers.As a part of this, Ad networks has started to offer Free Ad servers.

Normally, every Ad network ties up with some ad serving vendor, so as to run ad operation across its network websites.But with the prevailing competition between Ad networks, as an attracting formula the Ad networks provides FREE Ad server, which they have built in-house and which comes with fully loaded features alike commercial Ad server such as campaign management, Targeting, Report, Compatible to rich Media, Real Time campaign Monitoring and optimizing. A publisher must sign with this Ad network to avail this free Ad server.Further this ad server are .ASP based, Hosted model type, and publisher doesn't have to host it(BIG Sigh of Relief).

Can't Believe ?

Few months ago, Right Media made a bold move and announced their Publisher Media Exchange product will enable publishers to have free ad serving and manage their inventory.

Very recently Exponential, a parent company of Tribal Fusion has announced that it is going to offer Free ad Server "Expo9" to its Publisher, this server is currently doing its Beta Phase.

hey kool toon huh, howz my creativity :-)

However Open source Ad server "Open ads" and any other would be popular among small and medium segment websites, or even with some small ad networks.With this new trend, speculations prevails that this would influence even the BIG Ad serving Vendors like Doubleclick, RealMedia, ...to consider providing the service free of cost.

Lets see what this BIG players have to say

Ad Server-Brain of Ad operation

Online Ad Server

In simple language Ad Server is a software by which one can setup campaigns, edit when required, Forecast inventories, upload all types of creative units and even run report to know the performance of the campaigns.

In the online market, we get different types of Ad Servers

• ASP Model
• Site Side Server Model

ASP:A web based model, where the software is hosted at the Ad Server provider's end.And this can be accessed on Web browser with the Login.Practically this model is only suitable for Low and medium Ad volumes

Site Side Server:This is the model where the Ad server would be hosted at the Publisher's end.All the physical infrastructure of the Ad server must be maintained by the site.This model is very suitable for BIG publishers like Yahoo, MSN, Rediff, where Ad impressions reaches millions ~billions per day

Few Ad servers available in the market were listed down

AdServers

• ACE Serve™ - Advertising.com Centrally hosted ad serving solution
  
• Ad Butler ----Robust, scaleable hosted advertising management solution
  
• Ad Dispenser Server Version 2.0 ----Java-based advertising server software
  
• Ad Eagle Suite ----Locally hosted advertising management software
  
• Ad Hosting Solutions ----Scalable hosted ad serving application for publishers and siteNetworks
  
• Ad Manager - Indolinks--- Basic remotely hosted ad serving and tracking solution
  
• Ad Rotator ----Low cost ad management
  
• AdCommand ----Scaleable, remotely hosted ad management service
  
• AdCycle ----Shareware, mySQL-powered ad management software for smaller sites
  
• AdDesktop ----BURST! Media ASP-based ad server
  
• AdJuggler ----Robust ad serving solution. Licensed or hosted options.
  
• Advansis ---Advanced, locally hosted ad serving and management tool.
  
• AdvertisementManager---Commercial ad management system
  
• AdvertPRO ----Advertising delivery and management application
  
• AdvertSERVE ----Virtual hosted version of AdvertPro advertising management program
  
• Adviva A3 ---Pay-as-you-go ad serving solution
  
• Atlas Digital Marketing Suite ----Integrated tool suite for online campaign management
  
• BannerFusion Free ------Free, Perl and mySQL-based ad management software
  
• Central Ad 4.0 ----Affordable ad-serving product
  
• Disco---- Remotely hosted Flash ad server

• Discountclick -----Small-scale hosted banner rotation service
  
• Doubleclick DART for Publishers (DFP) ----Industry leader in hosted ad serving solutions
  
• Falk eSolutions AG: AdSolution, MailSolution -Collection of advanced hosted ad serving systems and technologies
  
• Fastclick Adserver ----Web-based application that enables you to serve, manage, and optimize online advertising.
  
• Ion Ad Management platform - Bluestreak ----Full service, real-time third party ad serving system.
  
• Manticore Technology ----Integrated online ad serving, optimisation and e-commerce products
  
• MOJO Adserver --MediaPlex---Web-based ASP advanced ad management tool
  
• Open AdStream - 24/7 RealMedia ----Local and hosted advanced ad serving and management
  
• Pegaz Admanager ---Locally hosted advertising management system.
  
• PhpAdsNew -----Superb full-featured, free, open source ad server
  
• Poindexter POE -----High-range ad serving solution featuring real-time optimisation technology.
  
• Speedera ----Leading global provider of distributed application and content delivery services.
  
• SpinBox ---Ad serving and hosting solution

• Thruport AdJuggler™ -----Robust remotely hosted ad serving and management
  
• Unicast -----Advanced multimedia ad serving
  
• WebAds 360 ----Scaleable hosted ad management service targeting smaller sites.
  
• Zedo Third Generation Ad Serving ----Fully featured ad serving platform

P.S.Sorry I could not give the link of these servers, however for details please type the corresponding Keyword in the Search engine

Doubleclick's DFA

Hari, Thanks for your comment.As you asked let me tell few informations about Doubleclicks DFA.

Primarily DFA, is an Advertiser's Ad Serving tool.That is Advertiser"X" would advertiser their ad across multiple websites.So as to streamline their online campaigns, they must colate all publisher's(Web Site)report and further Campaign management becomes critical.

So with the tools like DFA, the advertisers would generate HTML tags, which can be sent across to all the planned publishers for campaigning. As a result of this creative management, optimization even targetting can be done at advertiser end instead relying on the publisher.

Hari we also have lots of other tools like this in the market

For more information on DFA please visit "http://www.doubleclick.com/us/products/dfa/"

-Raja Ramachandran