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Zedo will develop ad networks for social media
websites
Mumbai, June 05, 2008 - Ad
serving network Zedo, which currently serves only
online publishers, has decided to develop ad networks
for social media websites, too.
The reason behind the change in strategy is better
behavioural targeting of users through these social
sites, the company says.
The San-Fransisco based firm currently manages
about 25 billion online ads per month, largely
through banner and display advertising and is
now channelising resources to scale up its engineering
and R&D base in India.
“Increasingly, we’ve noticed that
conversations are happening on social media sites
about products that people want to buy,”
Roy De Souza, founder and CEO, Zedo, said. “These
users are relatively young, they’re brand
conscious and, most importantly, they buy things
online.”
About 10% of Zedo’s ad volumes are served
in India to clients like People Group’s
bouquet of sites, Rajshri Media, Hindustan Times
amongst others. Globally, it serves the likes
of hi5, Tagged, Undertone Networks, Rockyou and
PartyPoker.
“The user’s social networking profile
may not tell you what he wants to buy, but our
behavioural targeting software, when installed
in the publisher’s ad servers, will keep
track of what websites he’s been visiting.
So, if he visits, say, the Lenovo website, it
means he’s inclined to buy a laptop. It,
therefore, makes sense to “serve”
him a laptop manufacturer’s ad when he’s
talking about it on a social media site.”
Apart from behavioural targeting, search engine
marketing is another popular way of targeting
users. At present, most publishers use Google
Adsense where it displays contextual text-based
ads relevant to the content on the site. Experts
say that search engine marketing is most effective,
while banner advertising is used effective for
online branding.
However, Navin Mittal, business head, Fropper.com,
said not all portions of a website can be served
by a single ad network alone. “Being a publisher,
we know what the user is discussing about on the
site. Our servers then request Zedo, or a specialty
ad serving network, to display a relevant ad,”
he said.
In the West, however, experts have raised concerns
about behavioural targeting being too intrusive
on user experience. Zedo’s new ad network
will enable advertisers to retarget “lost
visitors” who’ve recently visited
their sites and are shown to be more likely to
make a purchase.
Under the backdrop of increasing channelisation
of ad spends to the internet and the polarisation
of online users spending time on social media
sites, ad serving networks are on the radar of
several software and advertising majors.
WPP’s GroupM already has a strategic partnership
with 24x7 Real Media. Last year, Google acquired
DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
Press Contact
Jan Freeman, 415.348.1975
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