We’re always hesitant to describe what we do at Broad Street Interactive as an “ad network” for many of the reasons cited in this article. Broad Street Interactive is a different animal and it shows in the results we get for our clients. We’ve been ahead of the ad network game since the company was founded, focusing on partnerships and results rather than simply providing impressions or clicks for our clients. We offer hyper-local targeting, marketing, and reports for our clients that analyze each campaign’s results down to the last impression so that we can share information with our clients, such as which ad size was the most successful, which targeted market garnered the most impressions or clicks, and fully transparent reporting.

There are all kinds of ad networks—and Broad Street Interactive strives to be the best of the best by using our relationships with publishers and web sites to leverage the best results for our clients’ goals.

What this means for our traditional media outlets dependent on print advertising revenue: Those who already have an online presence should ensure their sites are (a) advertising/code friendly, (b) inventory ready, and (c) maintaining or increasing user traffic/impressions. Traditional media outlets can make up for a loss in print advertising revenues with online revenue, but they must be able to accept ad codes and have the inventory and traffic (and an online media kit). It’s a new world out there and with an increasing number of people getting their news and information online, advertisers are heading straight for the web.

At Broad Street Interactive, we are strong advocates for local online publishers. We represent a network of over 2,000 local news content publishers and bring them together with advertisers trying to reach the important local audience. We are certainly “bullish” on the growth of online advertising budgets in the local space. If your brand is trying to reach the local audience, nationwide contact us for a proposal. We will show you how local can work for your brand.

“Are you getting your money’s worth for

this media buy?”

A thirty or sixty second media buy in the Super Bowl can cost you up to $3 million dollars. In 2009, an estimated 93 million people watched the Super Bowl. Sure, millions more talked about and saw the ads. But, remember they were 30 second spots.

For $3 million dollars, Broad Street Interactive could put your ad on premium content sites across the country for a month and display your ad over 280 million times.

That’s the kind of math that makes sense to me.

So, enjoy the ads you see for thirty seconds on television and then next month come back and tell me who those advertisers were and what brand lift that is long lasting was the result.

A 280 million ad impression online digital campaign could run for several months providing long lasting residual brand lift and strong call to action opportunities that television simply cannot.

Not to mention that you cannot interact with a Super Bowl ad. You can’t click on it and be directed to a place where you could make an immediate purchase, send a letter to a congressman or learn about an issue or enroll in a class. Broadcast ads have their place, but the wild spending associated around one television event is a waste of marketing dollars and only the most vain CMOs are placing media around the event.

Reaching your customer has never been more exciting. Some would say fractured and difficult. We say it’s become more strategic and effective. Ask us how we can strategically reach your audience in ways that don’t cost you the entire annual marketing budget!

]]> http://broadstreetinteractive.com/2010/02/super-bowl-ads-are-a-waste-of-your-money-sometimes/feed/ http://broadstreetinteractive.com/2010/02/super-bowl-ads-are-a-waste-of-your-money-sometimes/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BroadStreetInteractive/~3/WwSzvuAFBHc/ http://broadstreetinteractive.com/2010/01/verifying-your-ad-network-duh/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:05:42 +0000 Charlie http://broadstreetinteractive.com/?p=769 I hope you are having a prosperous, and profitable, New Year. Recently, I read an interesting post written by Jay Friedman on iMedia Connection and felt compelled to offer my two cents on the subject. In his post, Jay invites agencies and ad network providers to volunteer full disclosure to their advertising partners on the placement and performance of their ads. Well, d’uh. Full disclosure so you know what you are getting when you place a big media buy? Why is that so controversial? Well, it’s because ad networks have made it that way. They have created these ad exchanges with publishers to purchase remnant inventory and now that advertisers know they can purchase them and get placement on premium sites without buying it directly from the premium site, content publishers suddenly hate ad networks.

Ad networks make a great villain in the online advertising space. Some of it warranted. Ad networks created a way for advertisers to purchase ad impressions at a cheap rate with the blind faith that they were reaching their targeted audience on reputable sites. As the ad networks grew, the blind network became a risk the advertisers had to manage. In addition to getting lucky and getting your ads placed on premium sites; advertisers also discovered their ads were running on questionable sites. Reaching failblog.org audiences may be appropriate for some retail clients, but probably not where American Express should see their ads.

So, ad networks became the villain; the scary out of control “outlet mall” of advertising. As a group of former publishers we created ad channels for our clients with full disclosure from day one. We have never built a “blind ad network” for any of our clients. We negotiate pricing at a fair rate and we believe you get what you pay for.

If you only want impressions for your client, buy remnant and rock bottom ad impressions from any number of ad networks. If you want to know that your ads are reaching their intended audience, are on reputable premium content websites and are above the fold and not buried in unsold inventory, contact us for a full site list of where we will place online ads.

We whole-heartedly endorse the policy proposed by Mr. Friedman. In fact, most of what was suggested, is a part of the standard service we provide for all our clients.

At Broad Street Interactive you have a right to know on what sites and where on those sites your ads appear, you have a right to be protected from unfair or ineffective placement practices and only have your ads appear on an approved site list in premium placements.

Our policy of full disclosure and accountability is an integral part of how we ensure positive, long-term relationships and trust with our client partners. Being completely transparent is how we demonstrate the efficacy of our ad distribution channels and provide real ROI for what is the most measurable and effective form of advertising.

If you are working with an ad network that won’t provide you with a full site list and consult with you on where your ads should and will be running, then you should call us right away.

In the digital media space, we also look towards new trends and emerging technology. Every year we keep hearing about mobile and so far we haven’t seen that as a platform that can handle the requirements we would have for large campaigns. For some clients we believe it makes sound business sense, but it’s still not pervasive enough to be included in every media plan.

We are also expanding our services and our team in 2010, so be on the lookout for information about how we can continue to help our clients and why you should be one of them!

• “Technology is a solution looking for a problem to solve.”  I believe that technology is a great tool in the digital space, but we can get mired down in the analytics and measurement and forget the art and creativity of advertising when we focus solely on using technology.
• Interesting fact about the 18-25 year old demographic: They are channel agnostic and they text 6x more than they call. Wow, so different than me. Sad face.
• The demographics are shifting. By 2050 white people will be the minority in the U.S. In the top 10 DMAs 58% are already multi-cultural. A full 1/3 of your audience is multi-cultural and 2/3 of your customers are right now. That represents over $2 billion in spending power. Catch up advertisers!
• Behavioral targeting is not worth the effort. You might as well call the five people you are going to reach. So true!
• Local is the future of online. Now I’m biased on local, because it is definitely what we at Broad Street specialize in. There’s a reason people still place advertising in local newspapers. Local influence leaders, home gatekeepers, voters, and business owners care about and trust their local news source. If you are going to target, why aren’t you locally geo-targeting?

Let’s talk more about local. We can target your audience in the local market online and are introducing mobile marketing in the local space as well. Local online is increasing by 50% over the next 5 years, most purchases are made locally, reaching local audiences with local context is 4x more efficient.

If you are using local online media for news, weather, sports and information why do you think your audience is not? Those advertisers spending money on large network buys should focus their efforts on the local audience premium placements above the fold and not five pages deep that you can get for rock bottom CPMs sold as remnant inventory.

We work with traditional agencies in building out digital plans that mirror their offline buys and we work directly with clients to provide good ROI through using strategic online local ad buys for their message. We consistently see greater engagement with our local buys than when we place national buys on large national sites.

We did not spend a lot of time this year on expensive and fancy ad units, but focused on getting the most value for our clients and getting their message in front of the right audiences. That simple strategy helped us to provide great ROI for our clients.

While I look forward to seeing what’s new and on the horizon, I will take what we learned in 2009 and use it as a litmus test for the way we move forward.

There’s a reason for this good news around here. Broad Street Interactive has experienced explosive growth this year and our gross billings are up 270% over the same period for 2008. We are thrilled that our clients continue to show their faith in us to deliver on our promise.

Our success is a testament to our passion for the digital space, our deep understanding of reaching local audiences and delivering measurable results for our clients.

Read the press release

Broad Street Interactive Announces Expansion

While advertising spending in 2009 is down over 2008, Broad Street Interactive leads the shift to local markets with its hyper-local advertising opportunities. With over 2,000 local premium content publishers and thousands more local blogs and community sites, Broad Street Interactive is generating measurable results in the local advertising market nationwide for their clients.

eMarketer released analysis from Piper Jaffray indicating that local online ad spend is set to outpace national ad spend over the next five years.

Piper Jaffray indicates in its report that small businesses will begin to catch up with consumers online, bringing significant growth to the local online sector and moving local dollars from offline to the Web.

Not only do small businesses begin to see the advantages of online ad spending, but national business see the value of being in front of local audiences in a way that Broad Street consistently delivers for their clients.

According to a survey released in September by the nonprofit Conference Board, someone has watched television online in nearly one in four U.S. households. Meanwhile, about 20 percent of responders said they were watching less TV delivered through traditional broadcast or paid cable-type providers. (source)

The trend presents a series of challenges across several industries: Cable providers, Networks, Local affiliates and broadcast media planners to name a few. What’s important to note is that people are consuming video content, but the way in which they consume it is changing. Once again, marketers are forced to catch up to their consumer. As media planners and buyers we are forced to change the way in which business has always been done to try new methods of reaching our desired audience.

We focus on helping our clients reach their customers in new ways that deliver results. It’s not rocket science and it’s not some “internet trickery” or algorithm that’s proprietary or blind ad network that is super secret we use to help clients reach their audience, it’s the same marketing know-how that’s been around for decades. We simply put those methods to use in different platforms such as online video, rich media advertising, targeted media buys and local market penetration online.

What’s fascinating to watch is how these legacy industries will become nimble and change their core business strategies to remain in front of consumers. It’s better to make those changes now while the percentage of online TV viewing is a mere 20% before it becomes even greater.