Gorilla Nation's president sheds light on advertiser trends.

Gorilla Nation Media ™ (GNM) is an online ad sales representation firm, handling the media sales for more than 250 highly trafficked websites in different content verticals. GNM is a one-stop shop for advertisers/agencies looking to build brand awareness through rich media and high impact ad units, across targeted content categories.

Brian Fitzgerald is president of GNM. We talked with him to get his perspective on current trends.

Read part one of the conversation here, in which Fitzgerald describes the difference between rep firms, ad networks and behavioral targeting.

iMedia: What has prevented other larger ad networks from moving into the site rep business and working more broadly with brand-oriented advertisers and marketers?

Brian Fitzgerald: I can’t speak for them, but it may be related to how much work goes into putting together the sort of blended offerings we routinely provide our clients. We probably put more brainpower in each buy and I’ll bet that we have more account people per campaign than anyone else out there. So little of what we do is automated on the front end, and I think that companies who can automate -- while providing tremendous scale -- probably can’t provide the variety and depth of service that we can.

iMedia: Do you see networks like FastClick and Advertising.com as direct competitors to your business? If not, why?

Fitzgerald: We really don’t, since these and other performance-only networks focus on CPA campaigns on largely unbranded sites. We do a lot of impressions-based business and most of our inventory is on branded sites like Universal Music Group’s DefJam.com, IslandRecords.com and more, many of Sony’s web properties, RogerEbert.com, MaryKateandAshley.com and others.

iMedia: Do you find that advertisers are more concerned with reach or targeted messaging? 

Fitzgerald: It really varies. All brand marketers are concerned with targeted messaging. For some, reach is not as large a factor as building a more impactful campaign across a smaller targeted audience and hopefully better influencing the user. Others are also very concerned with reach or at least the perception of reach. I say perception of reach because you can buy 30 sites, reaching over 15 million uniques, but if you are only spending $40,000, then a) your share of voice is limited and b) you are not delivering the frequency of message that is necessary for message retention and the possibility of influencing purchase intent or some other behavior. If budget were never an issue, then every brand marketer would opt for reach and targeted messaging. That isn’t ever the case, so for the buyer it comes down to buying philosophies, client expectations, competing interests, et cetera.

iMedia: What kinds of advertisers have been enjoying the most success on sites within your portfolio?

Fitzgerald: While it may seem self-serving, it’s actually true that almost everyone we work with has been enjoying success. This may be why we have close to a 100 percent advertiser retention rate on the business we’ve been doing for the past year. 

At the end of the day we hopefully offer targeted media opportunities at a more cost-effective price point than the major more branded web properties, like an ESPN or MTV. Our sites may not deliver the same “brand association” for the client as an MTV, but more advertisers are realizing that they can get a different, sometimes better, “brand association” by aligning their brands with smaller sites, with loyal audiences that are not being bombarded by brand messaging all day long as with other more branded web properties. We get many, many of our clients reporting stronger clickthrough performance and other non-disclosed performance metrics from advertising on our sites. 

iMedia: Do you sell and serve a lot of rich media?

Fitzgerald: A ton. We work with all of the major rich media vendors, like KlipMart, PointRoll, et cetera. Brand marketers and their agencies are big consumers of rich media, which makes a lot of sense. They want to find new and unique ways to deliver an impactful message to their audiences. They want as much of the messaging and information to the user to be delivered in the ad unit as possible. It’s a “give them all they need to know about our brand in the ad” approach that seems to be working well.

iMedia: Do you find that the volume of rich media units is continuing to grow?

Fitzgerald: Most certainly. I think that side of the business is poised for even greater growth. As such it is very competitive. We will see a lot of consolidation on that side of the business. 

iMedia: How about to your advertisers? Do you think that rich media’s added cost, especially for out-of-page units, is worth the added cost for them?

Fitzgerald: Certainly. And as the business gets more competitive, pricing comes down. This is what I think has really fueled a lot of the growth in this area. Cheaper pricing, more products to choose from, has positioned it as a volume game. Advertisers recognize the value but have been a bit gun shy in terms of the hard cost associated with utilizing rich media. As that cost decreases, the volume of rich media business is going up. 

iMedia: What’s next for online advertising? 

Fitzgerald: That's difficult to say. I would expect a continued increase in online spending from brand marketers. As more and more research comes to light illustrating the impact of online advertising, we will see budget shifts to online. The big players, the portals, et cetera, will always get the lions share. They are continuing to grow their reach, their product offerings and more in an effort to stay the 800 pound gorillas in the space. As spending increases and demand for inventory increases, the big players will not keep pace. Brand marketers will need to look to other outlets for reach and targeted messaging. Also, video, as expected, has drawn a ton of interest in the past year. I am seeing more and more publishers looking to create video inventory to sell. This will affect the direction of spending and the types of products rich media vendors are able to develop to play in that area. 

iMedia: What’s next for Gorilla Nation Media?

Fitzgerald: Our growth has been explosive, so we have a lot going on. We are signing exclusively more and more branded web properties. We are expanding the number of sales personnel and support staff. Most importantly, as we begin to represent huge swaths of targeted inventory in areas like urban/hip-hop, action sports, and so on, we are putting together large promotional programs that can be extended across all of the properties in a targeted segment we reach. This allows us to de-fragment like-minded users across multiple sites and provide a uniform promotion, sometimes tying in offline radio and print elements, to deliver a very successful cross-media promotion. With the addition of partner sites like Universal Music Group and others, we are able to leverage their assets, like artist participation and more, into cross-media promotional programs. We are getting many brand marketers specifically asking us to build these types of branded, multi-site programs. That is interesting to us.