Although the tides are working against them, vertical ad networks continue to multiply. More sophisticated targeting offered by larger, general media sellers, constricting and consolidating ad spend on branding, and an overcrowded market might dishearten some hopefuls, but there are a couple of entrants I’ve read about this past few weeks that continue to sally forth to seek their fortunes.

• MTV’s Adify-like cluster of vertical ad networks, grouped under the moniker Tribes, launched a vertical ad network, Comedy Tribe, anchored by Viacom-owned ComedyCentral.com, but including the popular JibJab.com site (remember the 2004 election-year flash video?) among its cadre of comedy-oriented properties. Tribes was launched this past September with a parenting-oriented vertical ad network. The Comedy Tribe will compete with the National Lampoon Humor Network and Connected Ventures (CollegeHumor, Today’s Big Thing) to reach the 18-34 male demographic valued by advertisers.
• Also launched yesterday was Inflection Point Media, a vertical ad network targeted towards SMBs, hopes to capture some of the $5.3 billion online B2B advertising projected by eMarketer for 2009. Leveraging its pool of properties that attract 32 million monthly visitors, claims to have behavioral targeting technology that identifies potential prospects and serves relevant ads/offers to those most receptive to them. Because its hub is a collection of 60 business newspapers, IPM will compete against BusinessWeek and Business.com.

Two more are boasting growth and expansion in a purportedly tough market:

• SportSyndicator, an Adify-supported sports vertical ad network, recently opened an office here in San Francisco to support the 10 million US-based sports enthusiasts it reaches across 100+ sites. Climbing.com and BigLines.com are among its publishers, and North Face and Oakley are among its advertisers. It competes with Sportgenic, Yardbarker, CBS College Sports Media and SI.com
• Niche Gay Ad Network pulled away from its competitors (LogoOnline, PlanetOut/Gay.com and Regent Online) to surpass 1 million monthly uniques on properties exceeding 4 million uniques in December. The network partners with 73 smaller gay-oriented sites and blogs.

The success of vertical ad networks going forward will be their ability to fend off the big guys, who’ve gotten better at allowing advertisers to nail down a specific audience profile through which they can target spending. One of the chief challenges is building scale; most leverage one large publisher or a cluster of related publishers to deliver consistent volume. It remains to be seen, though, if ad agencies’ entries into the ad network space threatens to squeeze them out of play. It’s not hard to imagine agencies buying or even building their own vertical ad networks in order to retain the margin, while relying on something like AdSense to make up for any inventory shortfalls.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Online Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.