Today’s ClickZ has a story on a new company, ReachLocal, started by former executives at skill-based gaming company, WorldWinner. ReachLocal offers local advertisers a “display ad and retargeting offering” with media purchased through Google, Yahoo! and RightMedia Exchange.
CEO Zorik Gordon suggests that they want the fat end of the local advertiser pie which means lawyers and doctors who can offer something more than just a $100 media buy.
The observation on self-service for, essentially, long tail advertisers caught our eye. Kaye writes:
Gordon sees self-service as the wrong model for attracting smaller advertisers because they tend to have little experience developing ads and handling media buys. “They want to cut a check and have somebody do the rest,” he argued.
Inadvertently, Gordon’s company may have identified a new business within the exchange model: traders for the long tail. Given display advertising’s complexity versus search – and, especially if ReachLocal is pushing re-targeting – it may make sense to offer trading services to those with smaller budgets particularly if you can aggregate the buys of smaller advertisers into one buy on an advertising exchange.
Update: Today’s Wall Street Journal also covers ReachLocal and suggests that challenges may exist in the near term for local online advertising service providers whose products overlap.
