Accipiter's VP of sales discusses how advertisers can become more creative in reaching their target audience.
Web publishers, media networks and eTailers are looking beyond static banner ads and pop-ups to extend their available ad inventory and increase revenue opportunities. Today's online users are rapidly becoming more sophisticated and are turning to trendsetting media sources such as photocasts, podcasts, RSS feeds, blog sites, streaming audio/video, mobile ad platforms and in-game advertising for their information. Content providers are quickly adopting these concepts, ramping up their ability to support these unique alternatives for their customers.
Marketers plan to spend big on emerging advertising trends
If you're planning to spend on emerging advertising trends now or in the near future, you're not alone. Increased demand and popularity for these innovative media formats are beginning to drive available online advertising dollars. Additionally, consolidation in the online ad industry has limited ad inventory available in the marketplace, forcing advertisers to become more creative in how they reach their target audience.
A recent study by eMarketer shows that a large percentage of marketers surveyed have plans to spend on emerging advertising tactics, with RSS feeds, blog sites and video ads leading the charge. Forty percent of marketers will add RSS feeds in the near future, 19 percent more than a year out. Thirty-five percent will spend on in-house blogs in the near future, with 18 percent more than a year out. Finally, 27 percent of marketers plan to spend on video ads in the near future, with 26 percent more than a year out.
Developing trends support emerging media ad spend rates
Larger overall ad budgets. Following a sluggish economic period in early 2000, the online market has rebounded and steadily gained consistency. In turn, more organizations are encouraged to spend on advertising to support online trends, as they are now in a position to make technology changes they deferred in previous years.
Shifts in ad budgets from other media sources to the internet
Online media innovations are slowly but surely chipping away at traditional media sources. As internet usage grows, an increasing number of mainstream media sources are offering innovative formats to their readers in an effort to maintain readership rates.
More companies including the internet in ad campaign strategy
As indicated above, as more users shift their focus for informational resources to the internet, organizations have to recognize the changing dynamics and respond with a more varied ad campaign approach, including emerging online media formats. The next generation of online ad management is moving beyond more traditional advertising methods, maximizing ad inventory and driving greater revenues.
Increased pricing structure for branding ads (display and rich media) and direct response vehicles (such as paid search)
As content providers experience greater online usage, participation, and loyalty, the need to maximize advertisers' ROI through the delivery of relevant consumer advertising becomes more critical. By identifying and targeting the right users, advertisers can achieve higher ROI from their ad placement. The more relevant an online target, the higher CPM rates a publisher can demand of its advertisers.
Emerging media formats create new revenue opportunities
Through such innovative online ad media, advertisers are often able to repurpose their existing creatives across multiple platforms, often with little or no backend changes required. As a result, publishers are able to extend their available ad inventory and create new avenues of revenue opportunity. Advanced ad management features, such as real-time inventory forecasting, campaign and creative performance optimization, allow publishers to take advantage of unique revenue management capabilities, providing more opportunities for increased sales.
Does your ad management platform allow for delivery of any ad format to any medium?
An important factor for content providers to consider is whether your current ad management technology can deliver any media to any medium. Managing multiple advertising technology vendors spread out across all forms of digital media is not an acceptable scenario for providers or advertisers in the near term. The increasingly sophisticated online market is driving demand for technology convergence and streamlined applications. A comprehensive technology platform should support any ad in any format with a single application. Therefore, you should only consider a vendor that allows you to use a single ad management application to deliver any form of digital media you currently support and/or have plans to offer in the future: RSS feeds, podcasts, mobile, in-game, streaming audio/video, et cetera.
Next: Does your ad management solution provide scalability and reliability?