Content Ads Guide

PubMatic (www.pubmatic.com), the first and largest ad optimization platform for Web publishers worldwide, today announced it has secured $7 million in venture financing. The financing in PubMatic was led by Nexus India Capital along with Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Helion Ventures.

PubMatic’s vision is to seamlessly connect publishers with ad networks in ways that benefit publishers, ad networks, advertisers and web site visitors alike. PubMatic automates and optimizes ad inventory decision making for publishers by identifying and recommending appropriate ad networks for a publisher and improving the layout of these ads. The result is that publishers enjoy increased revenue while at the same time freeing themselves to focus on generating innovative content and reaching new readers. Currently in beta, PubMatic serves more than 1,500 publishers and dozens of ad networks (including 7 of the top 8 per comScore Media Metrix) - more than any other ad inventory optimization platform.

“PubMatic is uniquely positioned to take advantage of tremendous opportunities to improve how online publishers and ad networks work together, for the benefit of all involved, including web site visitors,” said Naren Gupta, managing director at Nexus India Capital. “We are thrilled to be working with the PubMatic management team to help them build a terrific business.”

Web publishers using PubMatic have seen revenues increase by anywhere from 30 to 150 percent in a matter of days. For example, BikerOrNot (www.bikerornot.com), a leading social network for motorcycle enthusiasts worldwide, is using PubMatic to maximize revenue across multiple ad networks and to find the optimal color scheme for text ads that maximize visitor conversions. BikerOrNot has seen up to 150 percent revenue increase since implementing PubMatic.

“PubMatic has proven that it can increase publishers’ revenues while delivering thousands of qualified publisher leads to ad networks,” said Rajeev Goel, co-founder and general manager of PubMatic. “This most recent investment will allow PubMatic to make these benefits available to thousands more publishers and hundreds more ad networks. Nexus India Capital’s investing philosophy and success in both Internet and media investments makes them an ideal partner in this venture.”

The PubMatic public beta is open to all Web publishers, regardless of geography or company size. Signing up is simple and free: publishers can visit www.pubmatic.com/signup to get started in minutes.

About PubMatic

PubMatic is the world’s first service that increases web publishers’ revenue by automating and optimizing ad serving decisions. More than 1,500 publishers use PubMatic to significantly increase their ad sales revenue by optimizing across leading ad networks such as Google AdSense, Advertising.com, BlueLithium, and many more and by using sophisticated algorithms to optimize the layout of text ads. PubMatic is a service of advertising company Komli and is venture backed by Nexus India Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Helion Ventures. Find out more at www.pubmatic.com.

Ad Intelligence is a new keyword tool from Microsoft which is well worth using. All of this data is free during the beta test as long as you have a Microsoft AdCenter account and a copy of Microsoft Excel 2007.

You can easily research and optimize your keywords with the new Microsoft® adCenter Add-in for Excel 2007 with Ad Intelligence. Using Excel, you can quickly and easily build out or expand your keyword lists and plan your keyword strategy based on a range of attributes including relevance, historical cost, volume and more. The adCenter Add-in provides the ability to research keywords to help you reach the right audience, and capture and convert the right customer.

Here is some information about the keyword tool features:

Keyword wizard: Allows you to extract keywords based on a list of keyword in excel, a given vertical, or a given URL. Then it allows you to generate an expanded keyword list based on category similarity, keyword bidding association, or keywords containing the core keyword. Then it allows you to export an output of estimated search volume, clicks, ad position, ad CTR, and click cost for a given date range and match type.

Keyword extraction: Extract keywords based on an input URL. Can set maximum keywords from 1 to 100, and can set a minimum confidence level of relevancy.

Keyword suggestion: suggest keywords based on aggregate advertiser behavior, keywords containing the core keyword, or keywords that are deemed to be similar based on category similarity

Monthly traffic: Monthly search volumes for keywords, and forecasts for the next 3 months. Also offers a daily search volume option.

Search buzz: Top category keywords based on 22 core categories and about a couple hundred subcategories. The spiky tool uses the same categories but is focused on spiky keywords, and includes spiky index, spike start date, and spike end date. You can also set it to “all verticals” to discover leading overall spiky keywords or leading common search queries.

Keyword categorization: Identifies categories that a keyword belongs to.

Geographic: Shows the geographic breakdown of a search query.

Demographic: Shows date range and male vs female breakdown stats of keywords.

Keyword monetization: allows you to gather KPI monetization information for given keywords or keywords extracted from URLs. This feature provides information about clicks, impressions, position, CTR, cost per click, and match type for a given time period. The Keyword Wizard can efficiently guide you through the various options to generate monetization information for keywords you input and for keywords that are generated from your initial keywords or URLs.

Advanced algorithms: Allows you to change date ranges and other variables for the above tools.

You can download the package here and look also for further information.

Adtoll is one of the fastest growing ad networks in the online advertising industry. Their program helps website owners sell ads efficiently on their websites to potential advertisers. Apart from an easy signup, one of the features that sets them apart from other ad networks in the market is that their program allows publishers to set their own price, and advertisers can purchase ads on their specified sites. Publishers can run a number of different types of ads from text ads to banner ads to even video ads. Adtoll is similar to other ad networks such as AdBrite and AdEngage, and acts as the middleman between publishers and advertisers.

AdToll is an attractive advertising option for new bloggers. Firstly, it does not have any minimum traffic requirements, which means that all you have to do to be accepted in the network is provide quality content to your readers. AdToll only takes 25% of each ad sale.

Apart from an easy signup, one of the features that sets them apart from other ad networks in the market is that their program allows publishers to set their own price, and advertisers can purchase ads on their specified sites. Also due to their high payout, AdToll should also be considered by anyone using a similar network such as AdBrite and AdEngage

They boast their generous payout of 75% which is more than what the majority pays in the market. The best of it all is you can start earning within 5 minutes! They send out payments on the 15th of every month for the previous month’s earnings, and provide the following methods of receiving payments: Cheque, PayPal, Bank Wire, or account credit. Publishers who are also advertisers at AdToll have the option of using AdToll’s account credit, where funds can be held and used at a later date to book ads; they can choose to have their publisher payments paid directly to their account credit instead of PayPal, for example, and then use that credit when paying as an advertiser.

AdToll also has a great affiliate program. According the company’s affiliate program guidelines, “for each Advertiser you refer, you will earn a 20% commission on profit for each Ad Booking they make for the first 90 days of their membership and for each Publisher you refer, you will earn a 10% commission on profit for each Ad Booking they receive for the first 365 days of their membership.”

Google made an announcement yesterday that it will be making drastic cuts to the Adsense affiliate program payouts. Up until now, the program worked like this:

The current pay system (that is about to change) works like this:
• If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $5 within 180 days you get a payment of $5.
• If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $100 within 180 days you get $250
• If you refer 25 people who make $100 within a 180 day period you get a bonus payment of $2000
With the changes announced yesterday, the $5 payment will disappear, and the $250 payment will be reduced to only $100!!!

But, if you live outside North America, Latin America, or Japan, the Adsense referral program will end completely! The thing I find most strange however, is that Google is discrimination based on the publisher´s location, and not traffic origin, site authority, or language. Does it really matter if you are based in UK, when the vast majority of your traffic comes from the US?