ADSDAQ Exchange Beta Acceptance
This afternoon we received our beta acceptance (which we applied for a couple weeks ago) e-mail from ADSDAQ:
This comes at a perfect time for the ad networks we're now involved with on SuperMotors. In the past week, we have signed on with Casale Media and CPX Interactive (on top of Tribal Fusion, AuctionAds, Google Adsense, and our own in-house ads).
What's also interesting is experiencing the different interfaces each ad network has developed. Tribal Fusion's is very, very outdated and lacks reporting and information that I'd really like to see. However, according to this article, it looks like a new campaign manager is on the way for Tribal Fusion.
I'm really excited to put the ADSDAQ system to the test and help it centrally manage all of our ad networks while simultaneously maximizing our revenue potential. I'll post more feedback on ADSDAQ after the beta period starts as well as my experience with Casale and CPX after we have a couple weeks of traffic under our belt with these two additional ad networks.
Tribal Fusion continues to be our #1 performer to date. I'm looking forward to seeing if these other networks give Tribal Fusion a run for their money. Even if they don't, we will have a much more diverse ad network strategy, which is always a Good Thing.
ADSDAQ Beta Invitation
I received an invitation today to apply for the new ADSDAQ ad exchange. I signed up for notification a couple months ago but had not heard anything until today.
The concept is very intriguing and I am excited -- hopefully we can get SuperMotors in on this. The premise is that you set your CPM, they guarantee they will display ads at the CPM you specify, if they can't, they will distribute impressions to the other ad networks on which you are already a member (i.e. Tribal Fusion, Google AdSense, etc.). I'll review the steps here that they outline on their site:
Step 1: Set your desired CPM
This will take a bit of strategy and testing, I'm sure, but setting the CPM at which you will display ads on your site is a very nice model. ADSDAQ will then match you up with advertisers matching your site's demographic and choose the best performing ads to display on your site. Of course, this also means advertisers will also be able to specify their desired CPM, so don't count on getting ridiculous with your CPMs, as it's ultimately the advertisers who will be driving the pricing.
Step 2: Define your existing ad networks
We already use Tribal Fusion, Google AdSense, and AuctionAds. The dilemma we face is Tribal Fusion is our primary ad network, yet they only fill 71% of our available inventory we supply them. The remaining inventory goes to Google AdSense, which as we all know, is a CPC (Cost-Per-Click) ad network, and not a CPM network. In other words, we only get paid if users click on ads, not if they simply see the ads. AuctionAds (AA) on the other hand requires custom keywords that we dynamically supply on pages, so we really don't run these in our standard ad rotations, which is fine -- AA performs very well in the locations we currently have it implemented.
Maximizing revenue on excess inventory
So, enter ADSDAQ. It can act as our primary ad network. We analyze the CPM at which Tribal Fusion is paying us, we bump it up by a small margin (or even set it equal to Tribal Fusion's CPM) and set this as our CPM for ADSDAQ. If ADSDAQ can't fulfill inventory at this rate, it'll distribute ads to the Tribal Fusion ad network. The key for us is filling the remaining 29% of our inventory with something more profitable than Google AdSense ads. This is difficult to do with other ad networks that are available because the Google ads perform fairly well.
The Big Assumption
This model of course assumes ADSDAQ can fulfill inventory at a higher price than Tribal Fusion. If it can't, we will most likely reverse the model and still utilize Tribal Fusion as our primary network, have it load ADSDAQ ads at a lower cost (when it can't fill our inventory), and have ADSDAQ display AdSense ads when all else fails. In any case, the ability to control ads based on CPMs we define is very desirable, and has the potential to be extremely effective for site owners who are strategic about it.
Improved video playback on SuperMotors with Flash
Here's an example of how we've used Flash to implement improved video playback on SuperMotors. It's YouTube-like, and we still need to add in some additional sharing capabilities, but it's a major improvement over our previous method of only allowing viewers to download videos (as opposed to playing them directly in their browser or embedding them within a page on another site).
Disruptive Innovations May Lead to Tunnel Vision
This post over at Brand Story got me thinking about how similar this topic is to strategic inflection points (from Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew S. Grove). I work in an industry where competition from product imports (from China) are a serious threat to our business. The discounts at which their products are sold are very challenging to compete with. Fortunately, we think we have disruptive innovations in the works, but reading the post at Brand Story really got me excited -- primarily because what we've got coming up over the next couple years is really exciting, and we're doing it right. There are however, downsides to new innovations that must be taken into consideration, namely tunnel vision.
Fortunately for our industry, competing profitably at much lower costs is not the end-all, be-all of business strategy. Driving costs down is certainly always top-of-mind when competing with imports and when dealing with retailers who private-label imported products to directly compete with your brand-name products. At the end of the day however, and this may be the case for several other industries, you've got an industry with a plethora of products and brands, all similarly priced, but giving the consumer serious information overload and confusion (ever tried shopping for blinds and shades in a retail store? 
).
Avoiding tunnel vision: Consumer insights are your friend!
Disruptive Innovations, while game-changers, cannot get away from the fact that consumers still need to understand how to shop your category and ultimately make a decision to buy. A lot of new product development may lead to tunnel vision -- being so focused on that great new feature, huge cost savings, adopting a "me too" product (playing "catch-up" to other competitor innovations), or a new type of product altogether, that sometimes the "big picture" is lost for consumers.
Tunnel vision is really hard to see while you're in development mode. You may begin to see it after the product is ready for consumer testing and you are able to take a moment and step back from the nitty-gritty and see just how consumers respond to what you think is an innovation. From a web development standpoint, it's very easy to get lost in the cool, new features of a website and completely forget that the consumer must actually find their way to your site at first, be aware of the new technology, and know how to navigate to this area of your site.
Don't forget the marketing
Worse yet, consumers may respond quite well to the innovation itself during the consumer insights session, giving you the reinforcement you'd be hoping for -- but your innovation may tank in the marketplace. The branding, marketing, advertising, and/or overall awareness will help bring your disruptive innovation to its full potential.
Sometimes, this is the most critical component. You may have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, or it's buried in an aisle of other similarly confusing products, then you're back to square one. Don't forget to think "big picture" when it comes to consumers -- it's very easy to get lost in the industry competitiveness. Consumers insights and evaluating all aspects of the innovation are critical to success. This applies to many businesses, not just manufacturing companies -- web companies are just as guilty (Google is a major offender: I just discovered Google Browser Sync, nearly a 1-year old product and I love it! But where's the marketing for it?).
So far, so good with Auction Ads: Over 1.5% CTR
The other day we started experimenting with AuctionAds.com's real-time, targeted eBay auction ads. What I didn't realize was that I could supply any keyword in the AuctionAds (AA) code so that the keyword would generate eBay ad links in real-time as the AA ads were served. So, I was setting up individual ads in their campaign manager for 1978 Ford Bronco, 1979 Ford Bronco, 1980 Ford Bronco, etc. I was testing the ranges of years that Ford Broncos, Ford Excursions, and Ford Crown Victorias were in production (70's, 80's, and early 90's). This mean for a lot of ads and a very time-consuming setup process.
Then I read about their WordPress plug-in. All this was was a way to allow WordPress users to dynamically insert keywords into the AA ad code. This provided even more relevant ads for bloggers because they could provide keywords that were relevant to the post/article they were writing.
So, we did something similar on SuperMotors. Instead, we dynamically insert targeted keywords based on the year/make/model or make/model of a registry entry, album section, or individual image or video posted by our user (you may need to scroll down on a couple of these links to see the AA ads). This eliminated my need to individually setup ads in our AA account, so I simply created a global campaign in our account that these targeted ads would run under. Targeted ads (on SuperMotors) have always outperformed generic ads by leaps and bounds with our visitors. Since the automotive crowd are generally heavy eBay'ers, we are hoping with this tighter, more strategic integration of ads throughout the site, that we see increased click-through rates and revenue.
High Click-through Rate (CTR)
We are pleased with the 1.55% CTR thus far during our test. Now that we have an expanded implementation of AA ads, we'll see more impressions (and presumably a slight drop in CTR). Regardless, due to the highly-relevant ads, the CTR of 1.55% is much higher than Google (which ranges from 0.10-0.15% CTR on a daily basis for us). Many of the automotive items are higher-ticket items, so we should also see a fairly decent revenue share on items sold.
More updates on AuctionAds.com as we get further into the month.
Blog by Eric Long
I'm an experienced online marketer, information architect, digital strategist, and social media enthusiast. I'm passionate about providing outstanding cross-channel experiences for considered purchases (with a focus on mass customization).
About Eric Long
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