Why do I link to John Chow dot com? There are many blogs that I follow. Tom Hespos, Brad Berens and John Chow dot com just to name a few. John’s blog covers a million different topics pertaining to technology, and he is a full-time blogger. It would seem that he makes his living running his blog at this point and he is prolific in sharing with people how he does it. But he also gets access to a lot of beta tools and information that would not otherwise be out on the so quickly. If you’re looking for a site that is off-color a bit but where you will also find good dirt on Google, Microsoft and...<< MORE >>

[x+1]'s VP of product development, Howard Fiderer explains how to make consumer data actionable so that you can tailor users' experiences. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the company, [x+1] is the former Poindexter. Poindexter raised an eight-figure round of private financing in March of 2005 and used the funds to re-define. The conversion from Poindexter to [x+1] was incredibly intelligent because it was a migration toward their core competency. Poindexter’s was not a tier-one ad server in the market. For example, their reporting capabilities were commonly considered to be sub-par. People are not going to change ad servers to adapt to targeting using actionable user data. But they will engage with a company focused on site-side targeting if it improve ROI. Even better to enable integration with other ad servers to stay in the game…<< MORE >>

Wendy Davis talked about how a federal appellate court is getting ready to decide whether Google’s method of selling paid search ads violates trademark law. Are we no longer going to be allowed to buy the names of our competitors? Can you imagine if the entire concept of buying another company’s name on Google were to become a violation of trademark? Everyone buy’s their competitor’s name when they buy search. People use search engines to discover information not just about companies, but also about their competitors and critics. What would be the impact if we were relegated to only buying descriptors on Google. There go the rates…<< MORE >>

I had a client call me today and ask, “Why do we need to use an ad server when we have Google Analytics?” He wasn’t talking about ad serving per se, but reporting. Google analytics enables an advertiser to measure counts like an ad server and site analytics software and yet the measurements yield very different results. In fact, the results are always lower, enabling clients to conclude that they must be more accurate. Why do we trust Google’s counts over certified ad servers and analytics software? Wasn’t it just like four months ago that their click fraud rates dropped after being 20-30% for a really long time? The best way to think of metrics across different web analytics programs is to think in terms of trends, especially when it comes to Google. You get what you pay for…<< MORE >>

Robert Moskowitz introduces a piece on iMediaConnection reflecting industry insiders weighing in on whether behavioral targeting enables advertisers to spend less while getting better results. It’s a light a fluffy piece, citing insight from Bill Gross at Revenue Science, Emily Reilly at Jupiter Research and Dave Hallerman at eMarketer. The gist of it all is that Behavioral targeting allows an advertiser to ‘get more for their money,’ insinuating that they could reach goals with less dollars. Of course that assumption is off. When budgets are set, advertisers will spend those dollars ...<< MORE >>

So Bennett Zucker wrote us another good article but I think we need to look closely at some of his arguments. And from the publisher ad serving perspective I think he is spot-on. Commoditized pricing is an indication that there is little differentiation in the space. If it is just about price, the players are driving head-first into the ground. If someone does not crack the forecasting code it will remain a one-way ticket. Google’s attempt to throw their hat into the game with their free publisher ad server for AdSense doesn’t even bother to take a swing at it. My conversations with them last year yielded that they too didn’t have that problem solved. So if you want to win, and maybe I can help you here.... In terms of advertiser ad servers, it’s not about features, everyone has them and that is why the prices have fallen. Rich media, video and larger file sizes will drive the CPMs back up. Integration and consolidated reporting will keep the leaders alive if they don’t stay asleep at the wheel...<< MORE >>

Nice Quickie by Dawn Anfuso: The Biggest Fear About Ad Networks. Just a couple of quick points regarding working with networks. We’ve all been in the situation where we wish they would just disclose the ‘list’ of publishers so we could at least know where our ads would be showing up. Here are the highlights that I thought came through – from someone who is a hard-ass when it comes to contracts...<< MORE >>

So I received a lot of email and even a couple of phone calls regarding yesterday’s article by Mediaplex’s Sean Quick in iMediaConnection. I was pleased to see Sean use the term customer re-targeting in his article, since it was not an industry term when I first started this blog and my Urchin reports show Mediaplex on my blog everyday! I believe that Sean has classified behavioral targeting into three categories, even though his article only describes two: passive, active event-based and active segment-based. So while Sean’s article probably stimulated genuine interest and resulted in some leads for Mediaplex, how far down the path will you get with Mediaplex before you come to realize that you have not engage with customer re-targeting but simply another version of event-based BT. Let’s have at it...<< MORE >>

In doing some more digging, Quantcast has a bit of a hill to climb. Recognizing that many [smaller] agencies and advertisers can’t afford research services, Quantcast seems to be committed to providing its information for free, at least for the time being. But heads-up, this one may not quite be ready for primetime...<< MORE >>

Fantastic! When David Smith steps up and writes an article, people should listen. If you have the opportunity to attend a venue where he is speaking, you should make it your business to sit in on his session. Although he never admits it, MediaSmith strives to meet or exceed all the demands that he places on us as agencies, advertisers and vendors servicing the industry. And it should. In iMediaConnection’s “The Medium is the Metric for Online Ads” David pulled out all the stops. Quantcast, Blackfoot, Coremetrics, WebSideStory, WebTrends, Omniture all get a shot in this one. But I think there is more out there than David is aware of...<< MORE >>