October 7th, 2009 → 1:28 am
@ Richard
Online or offline, an advertising network (or ad network) is a business that connects advertisers with media owners. They help advertisers place ads in a variety of relevant media. They help media owners earn money from the readers, viewers, visitors and listeners they attract.
Online networks work mostly with websites but also they place advertising on blogs, in software applications and in email for example. The advertising itself can range from text links to banner ads to rich media like audio and video.
If you are an advertiser, placing your ads with an ad network can be a great way of distributing your advertising across a wide range of different websites and media. This can help gain you exposure in less competitive places.
Usually you will be able to decide what kind of websites and blogs that your advertisements will appear next to. If, for example, you want to advertise to teachers then it may be possible to arrange through an ad network to have your ad displayed in places that fall into their ‘education’ category.
In most cases big media companies sell only their remnant space through adv networks – i.e.the advertising space that they have been unable to sell themselves. Occasionally this will mean lower rates for the advertiser but this is not guaranteed.
Types of Advertising Networks and Determining Which Will Suit Your Business Best
In most cases advertising networks can be lumped into two groups:
- Top tier networks deal directly with their own advertisers and publishers. Search engines like Google are a good example of a top-tier network.
- Second level networks will also have a few of their own advertisers, but generally they make their money by syndicating the ads of the top tier networks.
Throughout both groups you will also find representative, blind and targeted adv networks.
- Representative networks represent a named list of media properties. They sell advertising space on specific websites and because of this, they tend to represent websites and other online media at the higher end of the market – the brand name of the website is important. If you want to advertise on highly prominent websites and have the budget to work with, representative advertising networks is the way to go.
- Blind advertising networks go the other way. You don’t get to decide or even know where your ads will appear, but the benefit is that you tend to pay much less for your advertising. They are able to give you these prices because they buy up advertising space in bulk and then resell small packages to advertisers at a marked up price. You will still often be able to decide the kinds of sites that you will appear on so that your advertisement for children’s toys does not appear on an adult orientated website – but the real draw is price.
- Finally, targeted adv networks use information about consumers’ online habits (i.e. where they click, what they are reading etc…) to target specific advertisements to them. Many of the bigger individual websites offer this kind of contextual advertising. Targeted networks are best if you are looking for a specific kind of customer.
Whatever kind of network you choose to work with, always do small test runs of your online advertising first. If these tests are successful, you can increase your advertising budget in confidence. If they are unsuccessful, you can choose to move your budget to a better use.
What Next?
- We Do It For You: If you’d like help choosing an advertising network, click here for more info about the lead generation services we provide
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Online or offline an advertising network (or ad network) is a business that connects advertisers with media owners.
They help advertisers place ads in a variety of relevant media.
They help media owners earn money from the readers, viewers, visitors and listeners they attract.
Online networks work mostly with websites but also they place advertising on blogs, in software applications and in email for example.
The advertising itself can range from text links to banner ads to rich media like audio and video.
If you are an advertiser, placing your ads with an ad network can be a great way of distributing your advertising across a wide range of different websites and media.
This can help gain you exposure in less competitive places.
Usually you will be able to decide what kind of websites and blogs that your advertisements will appear next to.
If, for example, you want to advertise to teachers then it may be possible to arrange through an ad network to have you ad displayed in places that fall into their ‘education’ category.
In most cases big media companies sell only their remnant space through adv networks – i.e.the advertising space that they have been unable to sell themselves. Occasionally this will mean lower rates for the advertiser but this is not guaranteed.
What kinds of Advertising Networks
Are There and Which Will Suit
Your Business Best
In most cases advertising networks can be lumped into two groups.
Top tier networks deal directly with their own advertisers and publishers. Search engines like Google are a good example of a top-tier network.
Second level networks will also have a few of their own advertisers but generally they make their money by syndicating the ads of the top tier networks.
Throughout both groups you will also find representative, blind and targeted adv networks.
Representative networks represent a named list of media properties. They sell advertising space on specific websites and because of this they tend to represent websites and other online media at the higher end of the market – the brand name of the website is important.
If you want to advertise on highly prominent websites and have the budget to work with, representative advertising networks are the ways to go.
Blind advertising networks go the other way. You don’t get to decide or even know where your ads will appear but the benefit is that you tend to pay much less for your advertising.
They are able to give you these prices because they buy up advertising space in bulk and then resell small packages to advertisers at a marked up price.
You will still often be able to decide the kinds of sites that you will appear on so that your advertisement for children’s toys does not appear on an adult orientated website – but the real draw is price.
Finally, targeted adv networks use information about consumers’ online habits (i.e. where they click, what they are reading etc…) to target specific advertisements to them. Many of the bigger individual websites are starting to offer this kind of contextual advertising.
Targeted networks are best if you are looking for a specific kind of customer.
Whatever kind of network you choose to work with, always do small test runs of your online advertising first.
If these tests are successful you can increase your advertising spend in confidence. If they are unsuccessful you can choose to move your budget to a better use.
What Next?
We Do It For You: If you’d like help choosing an advertising network, Click here for more info about the lead generation services we provide
Tags: Advertising Network, Contextual Advertising, Effective Advertising
