How Not to Run Ad Network

April 9, 2009

We reported a while back about Global Grind’s partnership with Glam Media to start a “Hip-Hop Ad Network”. Well according to one of their publishers, not only do they mislead publishers into joining the network by enticing them with $8.00CPM’s (which actually turn out to be $.75 - $1.50CPMs), they also make some publishers wait over 140 days for their payments, all while talking about them behind their backs. Check out an excerpt of an email that was sent by a Global Grind employee about one of their publishers. The email was later accidentally forwarded to that publisher:

Hi Beau & Hanz,
I received word from several publishers that they received their payments. Thank you!
However, I also heard from our biggest nightmare, Dr Drew from Drew Reports, that he hasn’t received payment yet. I looked in the system and there are others that habe not yet received payment.
Is there something more you need on my end? Any ideas when those payments will be released?

According to the publisher, the code was removed in December, and to this day he has still yet to receive his payments. Kinda messy, but it does bring up a few points that I believe I should mention.

Don’t Settle with One Ad Network
Advertising, in most cases, serve as the main source of revenue for most blog’s, so arbitrarily handing 100% of your advertising inventory to an untested advertising network is not a good idea. If you decide to try a new ad network, make sure you introduce their ads into your existing inventory slowly. Make sure you have a reliable second network to serve ads just in case the new advertising network runs out of inventory, or starts serving wack/cheap ads. You can use tools like Google Ad Manager, OpenX, or even Adify to help manage multiple ad networks.

Sell your Own Ads
Instead of taking getting a small percentage of advertising revenue from an ad network, consider leveraging your connections to sell your own ads space. You can use the tools I listed above to manage and report your own direct ad orders. You can set up your direct ads to be exclusive, or you can mix them into your current ad structure.

Consider Other Revenue Streams
This has been a hot button topic on our GroupSite. Don’t rely solely on your sites display advertising inventory to make money. Consider introducing other methods including; feed ads, affiliate networks, paid search, or even monetizing your twitter feed (Don’t worry I will cover some of these methods in a follow-up post). You can also make money by turning your blog into paid writing gigs, or license your content to others.

Category: Digital Media, Diversity, web 2.0 | Tags: ad network, publisher network

John

I agree. I think it is too bad it started angry and with finger pointing. Very unnecessary but thanks for the forum.

Gina

I think we can all agree that everyone on this comment thread wants African American bloggers, publishers, developers to have the same access to opportunity, capital and success as those in other groups. Folks who read this blog are the choir. So right now we're all fighting over the A and B selection.

There are those in the Black blogosphere who are totally oblivious to both sides of this argument and are ripe for exploitation.

This was a good discussion thread however.

John

Also, I just realized that this blog is part of a vertical ad network...I do see the Adify tags load up in the footer...how is that going for ya and how many networks are you part of??

John

Again, a lot of these networks are new and a lot of the processes are new. The industry was just introduced to vertical ad networks. Some work great and some not so great. It actually takes a network a good year to 2 years to really become a good contender. A business is not started overnight and neither are vertical ad networks. GG, MOG, etc are new. The platform they use seems to be developing into something big and it will take time.
The fact that you can be part of many networks, AND do your own media sales, what do we as publishers have to loose really? I have used networks that I was able to put in a redirect to another provider when no campaigns are available and still made money. No loss there.
I agree with the annoyance of late payment, but again, late better than never these days and we will see a consolidation of VERTICAL ad networks(which again I would not include in the same sentence as HORIZONTAL ad networks) in the months to come.
There is a lot going on out there and one unhappy publisher should not try to represent a whole network just by their experience. I am in one and am very happy with the service and revenue.
It honestly comes down to trying a few and see what works for you. Remember that the revenue is directly proportional to the media sales teams they have...and some suck and some suck really bad! Media sales folks are the sleaziest of them all (i think).
Stay independent and join networks...try to make as much money as you can...and in the end, if staying independent is better then rock on!

There is no RIGHT answer...the industry is still too young.

NerdwithSwag

Same situation happened to me, initially with RushMore drive who told me our relationship would be highly profitable, then had me running ads on my site for MONTHS that yielded zero profit, ZERO. Then they never contacted me again... The nerve of some folks?!

GlobalGrind also approached me to joint their network for a similar deal, but being that I had the horrible experience with RushMoreDrive I was highly hesitant, good thing I looked out the contract though, it was incredibly fishy. I then told the representative that i'd wait and see how GG heads in the near future, then come up with my final decision. Moral of the story? Stay independent brothas and sistas!!!

nOva_SB

Wassup NWS! Be careful telling your horror stories on here or someone will find a way to make it all your fault, LOL.

Anthony Farrior

Learned a lot about ad networks today!!!!

John

What do ad networks really mean these days. There are the old and tired advertising.com (horizontal) and there are many new VERTICAL ad networks mostly powered by a company called Adify. There are a few companies that also power vertical ad networks but I wouldn't put those networks in the same 'negative' space some of you keep doing.

The aggregation of like sites for a common cause is very different than a random site in a random network getting random advertising. Vertical ad networks help enable highly targeted advertising around a specific demographic while doing other forms of targeting like BT, Geo, etc. This is great for the advertiser. This is also great for the publisher because in no way can a publisher with low delivery have quality brand advertising unless they are part of such vertical ad networks. These networks filter out bad content sites and maintain high quality because it makes sense for them to do that.

Also, networks taking time to pay is NOT always the networks fault. Haven't you guys realized that is has become increasingly hard to collect from advertisiers and agencies. Even a network like GLAM went to a net 120 or higher because of this. Even Google had issues paying. Even Apple is having issues paying their iPhone developers...everyone is having issues!

I don't think some of you truly understand the online advertising business inside out but do a great job with your blogs by smearing circumstances out of a networks control, or an advertiser, or even an agency. Publishers can hound for payment and I dont blame them. Times are tough. But some need to understand the overall process of what it takes to collect payment before blaming anyone. Its not lime networks don't want to pay. It is their business and some their livelihood. These venture backed networks that NEED to produce and NEED to keep their publishers happy.

Late payment is a product of what is happening in the economy. You should get angry an NO payment and blog about that!!!

HipHopFred

Damn John -- that was so well put: Thanks for the clarity (you too BlackAdAgency guy). Be aware that it's always the same people on this blog that have the most negative and nasty things to say and its starting to make this site look bad in the way people with sense are attacked. I am in a vertical (black) ad network and i'm having a ball. My site isn't large but I'm not expecting a mint in snatch yet either but I do have a lot of relevant ads on my site that I wouldn't have in any other sense and its helped me to get interest from other advertisers which that company represents me for as well. They've been max 1-2 weeks late from what I was expecting every now and then but thats nothing abnormal to me.

The amount of disrespect towards people that speak the truth and are just trying to help us is incredible and probably making a lot of real professionals go elsewhere I'm sure. STFU little guys. If you ain't sitting on a milly minimum just don't talk - 4 real - just shhhhh. The jack-a in you is ringing hard and the big guys are just shaking their heads. The G-O-D don't like ugly...know this and karma is a MF.

Fellow publishers..don't let someone that ain't making the dough tell you what to do with your hustle or how to think. Do u. John...great words.

No Clue

Dude. Who online is making 1 million? Even Bossip and MTO the top black sites are not there --- you sound new and uninformed. This post is to warn people of the traps. GG, Rushmore, Essence ad networks are all traps for your traffic to get them more impressions for a higher ad buy.

Who is being disrespectful? Publishers are sharing their experiences and you need to take note before it happens to you Freddy.