The ad network business is very crowded, the margins are getting lower and Google is crushing it in display ads of late.
There is very little room for new player in this space, and the players who have reached scale are very well funded.
Ad Networks will be a 'winner take most' market, and I do not suggest trying to play in it unless you have:
a) deep pockets
b) some amazing technology that is really innovative and groundbreaking
c) a disruptive business model
d) massive domain knowledge (which you just said you don't have).
This is not the best beach to surf IMO. Any niche you've found that reaches any kind of scale will be taken by the bigger players who have hundreds of sales executives each.
The opportunity for bootstrapped ad networks is long over.
I'm actually having trouble finding a decent ad network for an image hosting site I run, Google denied my application because of lack of textual content and others like Ad Dynamo keep showing place holder ads for the same reason. I just want to display some text ads based on a few keywords.
hey jason, thanks for the response. Do you think this still applies even if I'm not looking to grow this into a huge network? and instead just want to set up a private invite only type? I'd hope to focus on quality in this network, right now there really aren't any players in the niche I'm in.
There's really no room for a private, invite-only type network -- at least not one that would make enough money to be worth your time.
One key you need to understand about the display biz now -- advertisers aren't as focused on buying sites anymore. Instead, they think of it as buying "audiences." Buying from a couple exchanges will give an advertiser reach to 95+% of the web. Add in some unique data with the built in targeting of the exchanges, and you can make both very broad and very very granular buys.
There are actually players in your "niche", you just can't see them because they are way too big. The large buying platforms are capable of targeting users (audiences) on a very granular level.
The only real model that works now is:
A) create unique tech (dynamic creatives a la Like.com) or gather a unique data set (preferably do both)
B) charge a premium for use of your unique tech / data while buying on the exchange
With any other approach you either won't make much money (so big players not interested) or won't find clients / leverage (big players too ingrained already and will crush you).
ad networks thrive on volume because of the margins involved, so it's difficult to succeed without locking in large players, especially because high volume sites are probably already leveraging existing networks.
Comments
The ad network business is very crowded, the margins are getting lower and Google is crushing it in display ads of late.
There is very little room for new player in this space, and the players who have reached scale are very well funded.
Ad Networks will be a 'winner take most' market, and I do not suggest trying to play in it unless you have:
a) deep pockets b) some amazing technology that is really innovative and groundbreaking c) a disruptive business model d) massive domain knowledge (which you just said you don't have).
This is not the best beach to surf IMO. Any niche you've found that reaches any kind of scale will be taken by the bigger players who have hundreds of sales executives each.
The opportunity for bootstrapped ad networks is long over.
I'm actually having trouble finding a decent ad network for an image hosting site I run, Google denied my application because of lack of textual content and others like Ad Dynamo keep showing place holder ads for the same reason. I just want to display some text ads based on a few keywords.
hey jason, thanks for the response. Do you think this still applies even if I'm not looking to grow this into a huge network? and instead just want to set up a private invite only type? I'd hope to focus on quality in this network, right now there really aren't any players in the niche I'm in.
There's really no room for a private, invite-only type network -- at least not one that would make enough money to be worth your time.
One key you need to understand about the display biz now -- advertisers aren't as focused on buying sites anymore. Instead, they think of it as buying "audiences." Buying from a couple exchanges will give an advertiser reach to 95+% of the web. Add in some unique data with the built in targeting of the exchanges, and you can make both very broad and very very granular buys.
There are actually players in your "niche", you just can't see them because they are way too big. The large buying platforms are capable of targeting users (audiences) on a very granular level.
The only real model that works now is:
A) create unique tech (dynamic creatives a la Like.com) or gather a unique data set (preferably do both)
B) charge a premium for use of your unique tech / data while buying on the exchange
With any other approach you either won't make much money (so big players not interested) or won't find clients / leverage (big players too ingrained already and will crush you).
ad networks thrive on volume because of the margins involved, so it's difficult to succeed without locking in large players, especially because high volume sites are probably already leveraging existing networks.