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Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Publisher-Driven Advertising Provides A Win-Win Opportunity To Advertisers And Publishers

"Can we create an advertising model that has all the benefits of paid search and at the same time values the relationship between publisher and audience?"

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Photo credit: Daniel V.

Technology Review carries another great article covering this time the fascinating future of publisher-driven ad-selection I have myself been advocating for quite a while. John Battelle writes an excellent summary of why the idea of publisher-driven advertising is finally mature.

Battelle writes:

"A system of Internet-based marketing, which I'll call Publisher-Driven Advertising, or PDA, may be soon possible.

In this system, publishers would pick and choose from a vast supply of advertisers.

...

Imagine that we start with the idea of PPC (Pay Per Click)--that advertisers pay publishers only if their ads are acted upon by readers. Next, imagine that, instead of buying into PPC networks or specific sites, advertisers release their ads onto the Internet.

Because an Internet-based ad is already a little piece of software, it can be tagged with information about its target audience, how much the advertiser is willing to spend to reach that audience (and how much each click will cost), what kind of websites are acceptable or forbidden (such as porn sites), and any number of other attributes.

Most important, each ad could communicate with a "home" application that tracks its progress and status.

Once these tagged ads are let loose, publishers could simply copy and paste them into their own websites. Through connections to their home sites, the ads would report which publishers have pasted them where, how many clicks they've received, and how much money is left in the advertiser's bank account."

Too good to be true? Read on then...

 

 

"The ad propagates until it runs out of money. If it is working, the advertiser simply fills up the tank with more money."

"Why is this model better than the current one?

Because publishers know their audiences best. There's no incentive for publishers to place ads that don't perform or that offend their readers."

Can such an idea become mainstream? Who can have the power and reach to take it successfully forward?

The answer is one: independent publishers/blogs.

"These "micropublishers" have credibility and influence with their online communities, and if they decided to run PDA-based advertising, it could be taken as tantamount to an endorsement of the system itself.

This adds yet another element to the PDA system: publisher influence. PDA allows publishers to declare their support of certain advertisers by deciding to run their ads.

This new system of advertising might even incorporate a "cost-per-influence" metric that would reward publishers for propagating ads to other sites*.

Although there are technological and business problems that still need to be ironed out, Publisher-Driven Advertising could work, especially because it benefits all the parties involved."

The idea had been indeed circulating since the past summer through quite a few blog sites and you just could it feel coming: independent Web publishers becoming the true drivers of a new advertising paradigm.

At last the ripple touched shore.

The current advertising model is turned upside down with control and direction taken over by the end publishers, Web 'zine editors, online reporters, news bloggers. Call it "transitive advertising", bottom-up advertising, open listings, ethical grassroots marketing, it is the realization in vision and strategy of what the Cluetrain Manifesto philosophy has been paving for the last four years.

"In essence, this new model for online ads reverses the relationship between publishers and advertisers.

In traditional advertising models, the advertiser holds all the cards. They decide what they want to spend, and most importantly, where they want to spend it.

I love this model because it's viral and it's publisher driven - it lets the publishers decide which ads fit on their sites.

Publishers won't put ads on their site that don't perform, and they'll compete to put up ads that do.

...Publishers are, in a very real sense, endorsing the advertiser, and that publisher's endorsement carries weight with the reader. (Publishers who endorse lame ads, or ads that take advantage of the reader, will be punished by the readers voting with their feet...)."



Read the full article as it does a wonderful job at summarizing a tremendous evolutionary opportunity for independent publishers, whose time has come.



Original article: "A New Idea for Publishing" by John Battelle - Technology Review.com

John Battelle -
Reference: Technology Review [ Read more ]
 
 
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posted by Robin Good on Tuesday, December 28 2004, updated on Tuesday, May 5 2015

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