Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Dogster and $40 CPMs
TechCrunch looks at a new partnership announced between dog lover social network, Dogster, and viral web publishing phenomenon, I Can Haz Cheeseburger. TC’s Sara Lacy says that Dogster has been wise to build relationships directly with advertisers as opposed to going the ad network noting that Dogster can charge $10-$12 CPMs and $40 CPMs for its newsletter. Now Dogster will leverage these advertiser relationships and sell “Cheezburger Network of Lolanimal-related sites that include IHasaHotdog and ICanHazCheezburger.” Read more.
UK Digital Ad Spend Outpaces TV
For the first time ever, the ad spend for the Internet has outpaced its TV rival in the UK. By a margin of 24% to 22% for the first half of 2009, web spending claimed the top spot in budget allocation according to the Internet Advertising Bureau in the UK. Read more.
Subscribing For Ads
PaidContent’s Staci Kramer writes that CNN is launching it’s own live streaming iPhone App (saw it featured on CNN today!) and will be charging users a one-time fee of $2. After the initial charge, users will see ads (Lexus and Chevron have signed on) in addition to their video content. Read more.
Noting a recent comment on his blog by AdBuyer.com CEO Tim Ogilvie, Chris Dixon calls out the need for better attribution models as content sites are getting screwed as they generate intent for products, but aren’t getting credit for the demand fulfillment (or “Intent Harvesting” as Dixon calls it) at the bottom of the purchase funnel – where Google search lives. Read more.
Bullish On Yahoo! Display
Jeffries analyst Youssef Squali noted that he believes shares of Yahoo! are undervalued with regard to the Microsoft deal and what he sees as a rebound in display ads. Squali raised his target to $23 per share – about $6 higher than today’s price. Barron’s Eric Savitz covers the news here.
$4 Million Series A For Casual In-Game Ads
NeoEdge announced that it has secured a Series A round of funding totaling $4 million for its casual in-game ads platform. Investors include VanEdge Capital, led by Paul Lee, former President of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios and Glenn Entis, former Chief Visual and Technical Officer of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios and prior to that, CEO of DreamWorks Interactive. Read the release.
Another Googler To AOL
AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka says that another Googler has left the mother ship and moved to Tim Armstrong’s AOL ship. As a “product” guy in the sales group, Shashi Seth, formerly ad sales chief at YouTube and, more recently running sales at Cooliris, will be the Senior VP of Global Advertising Products at AOL and report to Jeff Levick. Read more.
Social Display Interaction
According to study by social advertising firm, Lotame, interaction with video ads in social media are showing better interaction (clickthrough) rates than regular display ads. Considering the “richer” experience of video, this doesn’t seem surprising. Gavin O’Malley covers the story for MediaPost. Read more.
Patriots Selling ESPNBoston
The Boston Globe’s Jenn Abelson reports that ESPN’s new local sports site focused on Boston-area sports teams, ESPNBoston, has the New England Patriots’ ownership as part of its sales staff (The Kraft Sports Group) and questions whether this is a conflict of interest between editorial and advertising interests. Read more. Commenters on the story note that the Boston Globe has a financial interest in the Boston Red Sox via The New York Times which owns The Globe and 17% of the Red Sox.
Landing Page 101
From the Clickable blog, Clickable consultant Hanny Hindi ties up recent posts on what makes a good landing page. Hindi writes, “The truth is that many, if not most, users will make at least one detour before they convert. The destination of that detour? Your homepage.” Read more.
Forrester’s Riley On Demand-Side Platforms
Emily Riley announced on the Forrester blog that she will publishing her research on the demand-side platform business shortly and notes the recent deal between TRAFFIQ and Havas as an important trend. She also says that she’s about to do a survey with interactive marketers’ frustration with the “stack” (ad servers, RFP tools, billing, analytics, etc.) Sounds like interesting research – one, please! Read more.
MediaEquals Adding Online Trading
Linus Gregoriadis of the eConsultancy blog interviews MediaEquals CEO Gary Goodman about its plans for an online trading platform early in 2010 which follows on their current, offline ad media trading platform. Goodman says that the MediaEquals “marketplace” is not a threat to existing ad networks and exchanges. My question – what’s a “marketplace”? It appears to mean a cross-channel exchange with, perhaps, more focus on reserved or futures inventory than spot market or just-in-time inventory. Read more.
FetchBack and Coremetrics
Retargeting firm, FetchBack, and analytics company, Coremetrics, have announced a partnership in which FetchBack’s retargeting product will be integrated into Coremetrics AdTarget platform. Read the release on the Fetchback site.
