The "Engagement" Network

As ad networks continue to be criticized for their lack of quality, they'll need to combat this generalization in order to stay afloat. I've seen a number of ways that ad networks attempt to portray quality in the mid-long tail, but in the last couple weeks I've noticed many networks turning to "engagement" as their quality measurement. I've gotten used to hearing aspects like transparency, reach, targetability and time spent as value propositions, but engagement is new to me.

First, I think it's necessary to define engagement. Today, I read an article published in Adotas that defined engagement rather nicely: "the communication between a brand and its customer, a brand and its potential customer or between two customers. Put simply, for engagement to happen, there must be some back and forth between folks. A comment on a photo or blog post, the sharing of a widget ad, the submission of a photo or video into a contest or the emailing of a coupon to a friend are all great examples of engagement in advertising."

Through all my discussions with ad networks, I've found one in particular that truly captures the essence of engagement. Kontera, an in-text ad network, who has developed an innovative in-text technology called ContentLink that truly brings engagement into online advertising. Since Kontera received funding from Sequoia Capital in 2006, they've been able take their contextual targeting technology to the forefront of the in-text world.

Kontera's technology is unmatched by competing in-text providers. Some of the relevancy features include:

• Editorial analysis based on principles of computational linguistics in a way that mimics human intent: Which means that the technology actually reads the page and can tell the difference between Apple Computers and Apple Juice.


• Enables real-time analysis of static or dynamic content: Which means that when content on publisher pages change so will the relevant ad.


• The process is self learning and optimizing based off real time consumer behavior data analytics: Which means that the technology will recognize which keywords on what sites consumers are responding well to.

This kind of relevancy in targeting brings the consumer a level of engagement that they aren't unaccustomed to experiencing. Now a consumer can be reading about tax preparation and opt into an ad from HR Block. What's special about in-text advertising, is that the user must scroll over the underlined link in order to receive the ad. This means that readers must actually want to see the ad in order for it to be served. In addition to serving consumers contextually relevant ads, Kontera's Hybrid product will also aggregate other articles from within the publisher's site, or across the web, to give the consumer other relevant content that they might be intersted in.

This Hybrid product acts as a user and publisher benefiting engagement tool. Publishers have the opportunity to capitalize on additional revenue, increase page views, and become THE source for quality editorial content. On the other hand, consumers can now read what they want, be served additional editorial content that is relevant to what they want to read about, receive advertising that pertains to what they're engaged in and lastly, decide whether or not they want to scroll over the underlined keywords to receive all this relevant content.

The article in Adotas defines engagement as "A communication between a brand and its customer." Kontera is the facilitator of the conversation that readers wants to have with the brand. If I was a media planner buying for Iron Man (the movie), I'd want my 30 second video trailer, website, movie ticket link and theatre locator to pop up every time Robert Downy Jr.'s name shows up on popular publisher sites.

With Kontera's products and services, engagement is not an added bonus, it's their business.

Battle at Kruger: Ad Networks vs The Powerhouses

Some of you may have seen YouTube's "Best Eye Witness" Award Winning Video, "Battle At Kruger." This heroic video shows a poor baby Buffalo's struggle to survive an attach from two of Africa's most powerful predators; the Lion and Crocodile. Oddly enough, this battle ends with a convincing victory for the Buffalo because of the power of strenght in numbers.

At the completion of this incredible video, I sat there applauding the audacity that this herd of Buffalo had to challenge two of the most lethal animals in Africa. Then all of a sudden, it dawned on me that this concept of strength in numbers is the same strategy that Ad Networks use to combat the powerhouses of the Ad World.

Let's use the obvisous example of Kid's Marketing. As an Advertiser, I know that if I was doing the buy for a brand like Matel, I'd immediately reach out to the people at Disney and Nickelodeon. This is the obvious route knowing that they have an established and credible network of properties that reach children of all ages. However, that's precisely where every other Marketer is trying to reach this audience. Is there another source that has just as much power?

Let's take a look at GoFish, a very intriguing Kid's Ad Network that I've been lucky enough to learn about just recently, and that has some of the most popular kid's websites in their repertoire. Some of these sites include Miniclip, Piczo, WeeWorld and Whyville. Like the Buffalo, GoFish cannot compete with just one of their sites against Disney and Nick. However, when you combine all of the sites in the network, GoFish accounts for a monthly reach of 18.2 Million uniques, which is just behind Nick's 25.4 Million and Disney's 27.5 Million. Suddenly, we find that the Buffalo, although modest and sometimes unnoticed, can also fight with the most powerful of all.

I don't know about you, but when I watched this video I found myself routing for the Buffalo. This is what I like to call the case of the underdog. Although it may be odd to relate a Kid's Ad Network to an battle of animals at a watering hole in Africa, I think the same underdog priciples apply with GoFish. They're a true underdog in the sense that they work that much harder to compete with the powerhouses of Nick and Disney. Their impressive reach and customized solutions for advertisers are truly worthy of admiration and placement alongside the likes of Nick and Disney. At the very least, they're worth of a mention in The Digital Dojo as a company that embodies the characteristics of an innovative and well managed Digital Corporation. If you'd like to check them out you can click here.