AdRoll is a Good Idea, but tough to Execute

December 3, 2007 6:44 pm / 3 Comments /

Techcrunch has a post up today on AdRoll, a new “social” ad network that’s been started by former Paypal and Slide co-founder Jared Kopf.

First, I think calling it a “social” ad network is grabbing onto the social buzzword a bit, but it does appear to be more social than other ad networks as it allows publishers to form their own mini-networks based on their topics or other factors.

The idea is that if similar publishers band together they can create a larger pool of inventory that is then more interesting to an advertiser then their site would be alone. This alone is not a new concept, Adify has provided a similar service for a couple of years now.

As a publisher, I love this concept. When I used to own Wakeboarder.com and was selling direct to advertisers in the industry it definitely could have helped if I could have banded together with other sites in the industry to create a larger pool of inventory.

However, this basically would require that I, or one of the other publishers, would be out pitching advertisers in the industry on behalf of the “wakeboarding network”. Would I have done this? Only if I got a percentage of the spend going to the other sites in the network. Would this have worked if I wasn’t actively selling this to advertisers? I don’t think it would have.

So the key question to me, is if I created a wakeboarding community/network on Adroll, who’s going to promote it to advertisers? Are advertisers just going to hear about Adroll and stumble upon it? Are publishers going to be altruistic and promote their community on their blog for the good of the community? Are advertisers going to flock to this?

The bottom line is I’m glad Adroll and Adify are doing this, as small publishers need to get more visibility from advertisers regardless of the method.

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  • http://vcs.vc Don Copeland

    Great posting. I have been watching the space as a potential investor for years.

    Yes Adify has been doing this for years and is probably the top player in this space. There are many others that have been doing this in some form or another, including BlogAds, Kanoodle and of course Glam.

    The concept of AdRoll is actually not going to work for advertisers that care about control. I like the general idea of an open market on both ends, but this is going the wrong direction.

  • http://www.adroll.com Adam

    Hi CR,

    You’re right. Nailed it… I’ll just clarify a few points.

    Adroll actually has a referral program that ensures publishers DO get a percentage of the spend going to the other sites in the network when they sell it. The Wakeboarder.com example is perfect. If you’re already selling advertisers directly on your site, now you can a) attract larger advertisers due to your increased scale and b) get a cut of the increased sales across your community. In fact, you don’t even have to “own” the community to sell into it. Adroll shares a cut back to anyone who sells inventory through the system, and you get the cut from OUR cut, so no one else loses out.

    As for repping ads, “actively” selling it, and promoting it to advertisers, we follow the wishes of the community. Because communities can be exclusive, semi-exclusive or open, we allow publishers to rep their own communities/ad space (if they want), to allow a media company to rep it on behalf of the community through a partnership, to have the members sell it, to have someone else on the web (not in the community) sell it (and get a commission) – or to have Adroll.com sell it through our small (but growing) agency relations team. All models work – it’s your call.

    Of course the inventory is always available in the marketplace on Adroll.com for smaller advertisers – that are looking for smaller buys with specific products. We hope there’s some altruism out there too, but making sure people get compensated for the value they create is part of our credo … earn more together.

    Keep posted for more details coming on our site… We’re excited by what we’re doing too, and hope to be a good alternative for a lot of the bloggers and niche publishers out there. Let us know what more we can do too, we need you to tell us what you want, and what isn’t clearly explained…

    - Adam

    PS – Sorry you feel that way Doug. Did you know that Adroll.com is the only way for small advertisers to have publishers discover them in an open marketplace – and offer them a free trial campaign? Check it out sometime.

  • http://www.theseminal.com J-Ro

    Kind of like hives that blogads allows you to create.

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