Confession #2: We've never bought even one impression of "remnant" space from a network.
Ok, this is a matter of wordsmithing and I'll admit it upfront. If remnant is defined as you likely define it, all network space is remnant. However, we truly believe and preach that there is no "remnant" space online if all the media you purchase meets each of your criteria. Instead of using "remnant", try using "unsold." This is not just a case of making remnant politically correct, though. Here's why.
Remnant has always meant "less valuable" in traditional media. Think midnight to 6 AM rotators in broadcast, or some oddly shaped bit of space on 16C in the paper. Unlike these cases, unsold space online is often prime placement, can include behavioral or contextual targeting and can be optimized to ultimately include very little waste. Unless you're mad at your money, buying the same space for 50 to 80 percent less than it would cost site direct is pretty rewarding.
Confession #3: Running RON has returned better results for us than "pre-targeting" every single time.
If there is only one thing we've learned across the thousands of campaigns we've run. it's that the internet and its associated masses teaches us something new in every campaign -- if we let it. You see, most media buyers pre-target online like they pre-target traditional media. The problem with this, though, is that traditional media doesn't allow for real-time learnings (or any learnings in most cases) to adjust on the fly. Placing a domestic pickup truck on Sunday football TV games makes sense; it's the best decision using the information we have. Online, real-time learning actually reduces the ROI you'll get for your client by pre-targeting.
The recent white paper we published with a partner network proves this beyond any doubt. Taking five automotive campaigns, we showed how optimizing from within an RON buy will a) outperform a pre-targeted buy every time, that b) the channels within a network that buyers believe will perform best often don't perform well at all and c) optimizing from within an RON campaign reveals the network channels that are best for that product. Additionally, we've found that these channels vary from DMA to DMA, even when two DMAs are contiguous.
This isn't to say that buyers don't know what they're doing, or that you should change your strategies 180 degrees. The less extreme view of this is that online can teach you about who and where folks are really responding to your message.