With an increasing number of ad networks to choose from, it's important to find one that will benefit buyers, sellers and consumers.

Savvy media professionals know that the best media models are the ones in which all three core constituencies -- buyers, sellers and consumers -- can benefit. This is why Advertising.com and Google were such runaway winners before the rest of our industry began to really take off, and why they continue to grow their revenue faster than the rising tides. This may also provide the best way to understand why there are so many ad networks now. It's all about this three-way value chain.

Taken another way, does the ad network you're doing business with benefit all three constituencies? There are so many networks now that serve an increasingly stratified web media cohort. So, ask yourself if your network passes these three litmus tests.

Sellers
Let's say you are the publisher of a vertically oriented website that is the number five player in the automotive enthusiast sub-vertical. Your compensation is based on driving $18M in annual sales revenue, and you can do this any way available. You can hire a sales team and situate the salespeople across the country, then hire marketers and try to productize your inventory and work with ad traffickers. Perhaps you'll outsource those operations and get your ad-serving built in. How about technology considerations? Where would you start?

Do you develop an ad serving platform? How about a campaign interface for uploading ads and managing advertiser accounts? Don't forget that you'll also need a reporting interface to view stats and perform analytics to optimize campaigns.

Of course, you'll have to market your site to buyers somewhere in this mix.

Bringing all this to bear would likely take more than six months and will eventually cost somewhere in the range of $5M to $7M/year, including fully commissioned salaries, rents, outsourcing, et cetera.

So, during your first month, just as you're getting started, you meet someone at an iMedia Summit who knows more about the buyers in your vertical than you do. Let's say it's Jarvis Coffin from Burst, and he wants to purchase half your inventory at roughly 50 percent of the rate at which you'd projected selling it.

At the same conference, you then meet someone from the best vertical network in your space. Since yours is a car enthusiast site, that would be Jumpstart Automotive Media. The representative wants to purchase about 35 percent of your inventory at a slightly higher price, let's say 55 percent of your projected rate card.

Finally, over cocktails that night, you meet someone from Advertising.com who wants to purchase the remnant at 35 percent of your rate card.

What would happen if said publisher went back to his boss with his site sold out for the year at a blended rate of roughly one half the rate card with zero cost of business? He'd probably get an enormous promotion, for starters. Let's not forget also that each of these networks would immediately bring national advertisers to the site in question, with the right kind of targeting and relevance -- and operations -- built in.

Of course, as the year went along, said publisher could also set aside certain inventory for his own sponsorships and other products, and shift inventory from one network to the other, depending on which one was driving the better results.

As what we regard as "web media" continues to expand, this is one key reason why so many new publishers sell a large portion of their sales through networks: They would be out of their minds not to. And, for those of you who are wondering where I conjured the scenario I just described above, I didn't. It's based on a true story, with just the networks and vertical changed.

Buyers
Those of you in agencies: Have you ever priced the premium travel sites? Have you priced these sites against Travel Ad Network (TAN)? You would think that media buyers can reach all the potential travelers they want by buying a portal. But at some point this year TAN probably will surpass Yahoo Travel as the largest travel planning audience online. Moreover, the audiences on the roughly 50 sites that TAN serves are all but unduplicated by any other major player, including Yahoo Travel, MSN Travel, Trip Advisor and others. 

I was fascinated by the recent quotes from Yahoo's Lynn Bolger that the page view is no longer a solid measure. What else should we expect from a site that comScore says is losing traffic everywhere but in Yahoo Mail?

The fact is that specialty networks like TAN provide comparable value, greater reach, and better targeting for marketers through their reach, variety, and in most cases, better technology. For better or worse, when it comes to how these transactions occur, networks are -- more often than not -- easier for media planners and buyers to deal with. too. As most of you know, however, any vertical network worth dealing with will provide you with a strong measure of transparency, and not just on the back end. Always ask where your ad will appear, and get it in writing.

Consumers
NetShelter and its technology "Content Network" represent more than 150 tech sites -- some you've heard of and some that only your tech support guys have heard of -- on an exclusive and non-exclusive basis. Grouping audience under the broad categories: IS/IT, Consumer Electronics, Tech Enthusiasts, Developers, Gamers and over 60 niche content categories, NetShelter is a great example of why networks also help consumers. 

After all, when describing such precisely nice sites, the ads are nearly as important as the content, but only if those ads are relevant and good. It takes a national network to deliver ads like that consistently to small niche sites, especially in the tech verticals. The company began to sign large contracts ($500K to $2 Million) with DR tech advertisers with larger brands looking to sell to early adopters such as VOIP providers, ultra high speed internet providers selling to businesses, et cetera.

By late 2004, NetShelter started seeing significantly increased demand from branding clients such as Microsoft, running brand awareness campaigns such as Microsoft Versus Linux targeted to businesses and later Windows Mobile. By May of 2006, NetShelter reached nearly 1.9 million unique users in the United States, meaning that it represented the largest branded technology vertical, with an audience bigger than CNET's News.com or Ziff Davis Internet or CMP Media.

That's a lot of targeted content being consumed free, with even the ads benefiting the consumers.

Does your network serve all three constituencies? If you don't know, ask your representative from your network. He needs to have this answer ready from the top of his head.

Mark Naples is managing partner for WIT Strategy. Read full bio.