Your Mom is an Ad Network

Yesterday I attended the Paid Content EconAds conference here in New York.  It was an incredibly interesting afternoon, with vibrant conversations about monetization trends in online media, business development and acquisition moves and predictions, marketing trends and thoughts on what is driving the tech/media start-up community today.  Overall, a well rounded conversations that brought all the voices to the table to take a moment and reflect on key wins and big mistakes.  And with almost all key voices from both sides of the Microsoft/Yahoo deal silenced by NDAs, the conversation was not overwhelmed with speculation about the future of “Micro-hoo”.

One of the hot topics that surfaced over and over again was the fate of the ad network.  Key conclusions: everyone has one, there is little differentiation and they are all getting bought up in multiples.  Lynda Clarizio, President of AOL’s Platform-A gave us an update on the integration of Ad.com, Tacoda and other recent acquisitions into their new super-platform, offering a one-stop-shop for branding and direct response marketers.  On the flip side, Dave Morgan of Tacoda and 24/7 Real Media fame discussed the difficulties that many ad network start-ups are going to face as VCs squeeze harder to produce a strong return on investment from early stages.  Another highlight was Cyril Zimmerman of Hi-Media’s witty commentary about the redefinition of “scale” as dynamic price optimization comes to the forefront of ad serving technology.  In my humble opinion; however, the discussion neglected one key fact: the impression is only as valuable as the cookie it targets and an advertiser should only pay a premium for the distinct cookies that matter to their messaging/CRM/media strategy.  

Key Takeaways: 

1. For start-ups, it doesn’t ever matter that you are ready to sell.  It only matters when someone is ready to buy…so be ready for some bumps
2. Price optimization technology is the new ad network 
3. Big media companies are having and will continue to have trouble with integrating new technologies into their business model 
4. NO ONE has figured out the syndication of video content online.