By
Jennifer James
February 18, 2008
The age of
online advertising is constantly changing
and in the past year we've seen a real shake-up in the way advertisers and publishers
work together to get ad messages to readers
and online users.
National
companies are demanding more bang for their
buck, so to speak, and are looking for
greater visibility of their ad campaigns.
Large publishing web sites, however, have
not been able to fulfill these demands, so
they came up with a model to spread ad
messages across their web site and also
share ad revenues with smaller publishers.
The small publishers earn a percentage of
the ad network's revenues in exchange for
running ads on their site. While this may
look like a win-win situation for all, I
submit that as a small publisher there may
be more pitfalls to ad networks than
benefits.
Many of my
sites and blogs have been approached to join
ad networks, and at first, I was extremely
flattered to be asked by huge brand-name
companies to join them. But then I took a
look at the contracts and I started to see
things a little differently.
I have seen
ad network contracts where publishers must
agree to run only the ads that are served by
the network (exclusivity) or not run ads
that compete with the ones served by the
network. I have also seen contracts that
demand small publishers stream content in
the form of a widget on their blog or site
in exchange for the remote possibility of
being published on some huge news site or
popular niche site. I have read contracts
that explicitly say ad networks can change
the CPM price of impressions without notice
or give discounts to advertisers while your
revenues go down without you knowing. I have
also read contracts where ad networks can
publish/syndicate any of the small
publisher's work without notice to help sell
ad space or to syndicate content with other
sites in the network or with third parties.
I know ad
networks are great for those who do not have
the time to sell their own ad space, but
sadly some of these ad networks make you
sell your soul just to make a fraction of
what you could make selling ads to smaller
businesses.
Each time I
read one of these contracts I feel even more
used as a small publisher and have decided
not to join any more of these networks. I
also cannot wait until my current contracts
are up and I regain control over my own web
space again. I don't like people telling me
what ads I can and cannot run on my own web
sites and blog.
Even though I
know I won't get the large national ad
campaigns if I sell all of my ad space
myself, I will have more satisfaction
controlling my creative space instead of
giving up my soul to ad networks that
really don't care about me and my readers.
As with all things, it's all about the numbers.
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