ad networks - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

The US' Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Bain & Company recently released an interesting study showing that "the use of 'ad networks' surged from 5% of total ad impressions sold in 2006 to 30% in 2007."

Dubbed ‘Platform A’, the group will effectively create a huge ad network out of AOL’s recent acquisitions, including Advertising.com, behavioural targeting network Tacoda, ad serving company AdTech, video ad firm Lightningcast and mobile ad network Third Screen Media.

Yahoo! has continued its acquisition spree with a $300m deal for online ad network BlueLithium.

The move will add roughly 1,000 sites to the web giant’s Publisher Network, as well as seeing it pick up BlueLithium’s behavioural targeting technology to enable its clients to serve more relevant ads.

US-based photo sharing site Fotolog has been bought by French ad network Hi-Media Group in a deal valued at $90m.

The move will see Hi-Media attempting to use its online advertising and micro-payments systems to better monetise the site, which says it is experiencing strong growth in Europe.

The deal will see AOL picking up Tacoda’s online ad network, which claims to have access to around 130m people across 4,000 sites.

The issue of poor advertising placement has hit the headlines recently. But it’s important to remember that blind network advertising and blind chain buying are not the same, writes Phil Coote.

The problems with network buying exposed by Panorama last night have been around for as long as people have been buying adverts.

However, advertisers can still benefit from blind buying thanks to IASH and improved third party ad serving.

WebAds, the Holland-based European internet advertising network, has opened a UK office in London.

The company has launched a new, localised website at webads.co.uk, and appointed a management team at premises in Clerkenwell to service advertisers and publishers in Britain and around Europe.

Congratulations to ADiFY, the company that enables publishers to create niche online ad networks, on the news that it has bagged a cool $19m in funding from investors including NBC Universal and Time Warner Investments.

Despite being a relative minnow, ADiFY could seriously threaten Google’s dominance of the online ad space, and it is a little surprising that the search giant hasn’t hedged its bets by getting involved in this funding round.

By introducing the auction model to display advertising, he hopes to benefit advertisers, agencies, ad networks and publishers. Ten sales houses have signed up to trade on the exchange when it goes live.

We caught up with him while he was over in London recently, to talk about why he chose to launch in the UK before the US or China, what political and technical challenges he faced, and what impact AdECN might have on the overall ad market.