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Signs your ad network might be an "ad notwork"
By Scott Meldrum
Know the signs
I recently saw an ad for a sexual performance enhancing drug on a blog promoting "family values." This wouldn't be unusual, since it's hard to have family values without having a family. And it's even harder to have a family without having sex. If one was troubled in this area and needed some help, the ad they saw on this site might have been of interest.

The problem was that the ad was next to a blog post commenting on the value of saving one's self for marriage.

Viagra and virginity are not ideal matches in 99.9 percent of scenarios that run through my slightly twisted mind. They are certainly not matched where ad targeting is concerned. This ad was brought to me by way of an ad network. I don't want to mention names here (rhymes with BubbleNick), but clearly something went wrong with this ad placement. It's not an isolated instance.

Ad networks are a powerful tool in the online advertising arsenal. So powerful, in fact, that you need an expert to help break down the dozens of quality companies playing in the space. Most of them do a fairly good job at providing a balance between reach and relevancy, including BubbleNick. But, like any highly competitive industry, there are good and bad service providers and good and bad results -- regardless of whom you partner with.

So how do you know when your ad network is not working? Here are five simple signs to look for when determining if your ad network is an "ad notwork."

Ad notwork sign #1: lack of disclosure
Does anyone really buy from networks that aren't transparent anymore? You bet they do. The real question is why. With 20-plus large-scale networks, tens of thousands of publishers and at least a dozen marketing methodologies to choose from, the landscape is confusing enough. Navigating it blindly is just plain foolish, especially for those brand marketers who are new to the ad network game.

Lack of disclosure takes the control out of your hands and puts it into the hands of the ad network, which in some cases is more software than anything else. I've been playing the advertising game long enough to know that the more we trust software to make certain marketing decisions, the more disconnected from the consumer we become.

This is a hot debate in the ad network industry. Some networks will tell you that you will pay a premium for transparency. Pay it. At least with transparency, you know what you are getting in the deal. Some ad networks will also tell you that quality and disclosure are not mutually exclusive. That's correct, but neither are disclosure and lack of quality. You can reach your targeted audience very effectively with ad networks that disclose their list of sites. It's irresponsible of networks to claim otherwise.

Ad notwork sign #2: inappropriate placements
We've all heard stories of "ads gone wild" where display ads are shown on objectionable or otherwise inappropriate sites. This is one of many reasons why transparency is important. But, while a particular website might be an appropriate venue to showcase your brand, beware: Not all of the content on that site will match up well with your brand or the creative you are using to market it. Here are some examples:

These kinds of placements are becoming more and more of an issue for ad networks, especially those that have websites that publish user-generated media. Your ad network needs to be able to identify likely problems before they become problems. Sadly, this is a problem solved through humanity rather than technology -- no computer program can make the right judgment call every time.

If your ad network cannot control contextual placement based on the content that will approximate your ad, you become unable to determine whether the site and/or the placement is truly appropriate for your brand. Optimization then becomes more about binary code and less about contextual relevance -- which then makes any advertising moot.

With the amount of content flying back and forth on the web, even humans can't keep up. Still, your ad network needs to be proactive in addressing these kinds of problems up front. While they are a part of most ad network buys, don't let these kinds of placements to be deemed "part of the deal."

Ad notwork sign #3: unreliable audience data
How effective can a company be at managing 30,000 website publishers? How often does the network review its sites for target and traffic compliancy? How reliable is the information you have from an ad network when you are making a decision about advertising on a website or a group of websites? Once you make the decision and run the campaign, did the numbers fall in line with the data you used when making your determination to advertise?

The bigger an ad network becomes, the more important it is for them to provide accurate, up-to-date website visitor statistics. While you aren't going to get that level of data from every site in an ad network, it's important to make sure that you aren't burning through impressions on sites that have changed their audience profiles in the span of a few months.

Your ad network needs to be able to certify that the audience profiles in its portfolio of websites have been recently verified for targeting and traffic standards. This affects how heavily you will need to focus on optimization once the campaign is in flight.

Ad notwork sign #4: optimization 1.0
Many of the larger networks do a solid job in the way they track, report and optimize their campaigns. This is great news for brands. While, ultimately, the onus is on the client to determine which metrics need to be measured, it's up to the network to have the technology in place to be able to track, well, everything!

You need to be able to see real-time results against each creative, placement and site in the network. You want to measure impressions, clickthrough and conversion rates against each creative, each placement and each site in the network. Time, geographic, contextual and psychographic-based tracking should also be part of your measurability standards.

Optimization is a mixture of technology -- software configures results and optimizes based on pre-programmed performance data, and the human-driven analysis that involves you and your account rep looking at the data, reviewing the placements and making optimization decisions.

For my money, I would want to know that a woman named Grace, 34, from Green Bay, Wisc., who is a Virgo and likes cats and needlepoint, clicked on my ad for the new BlackBerry Curve at 4:33 P.M., while she was reading the latest dirt on TMZ.com about how Britney refuses to put her PDA away when she is driving. This might be a pie-in-the-sky expectation, but your ad network should be able to keep up with most of this.    
 
Regardless of how you optimize, make sure you have a network partner that will balance good judgment and great service with cutting edge technology. A good network will be committed to optimization as a practice, not as a sales pitch. The best campaigns are typically those that required the most optimization. I've often said that a good ad network is one that consistently delivers good results, then consistently optimizes to deliver great results. I just made that up for this article, but you get the point.
Ad notwork sign #5: poor service
Disclaimer: I hate bad service. This applies to the dude at the Starbucks counter who insists that I call a large coffee a "Venti Drip," as well as to the ad network I do business with. How much does your ad network focus on "getting" your business versus "servicing" your business? The ratio should be 1 to 10 in favor of service. Advertising via an ad network is a complicated and, for many, overwhelming process. You need to have a committed account team there to help you navigate the territory.

It should be taken for granted that an ad network is going to deliver 100 percent of what it promises. It doesn't get to play in the big pool if it can't hack it in the deep end. Most networks are reliable and accountable. But how are they helping you improve results for your brand? How are they better than the rest where education and project management are concerned? Every network promises reach, targeting, measurability and, yes, even service. If "service" means taking your calls and sending reports on time, find a new network.

Many brand marketers use ad networks more for reach than relevancy. They see this "shotgun blast" approach as cost effective. Some of the biggest and best ad networks out there will gladly relieve you of some of your ad budget and perform against this expectation without helping you understand that the true power behind the network is its ability to target on a mass scale. In my view, that's poor service.
Conclusion
I'm a big fan of ad networks, even the BubbleNick guys. But not every ad network is created equal, and frankly, I couldn't pick any one of them and proclaim it the champion. Regardless of which ad network you work with, remember, there are always choices available to you. Type in "Ad Networks" on any search engine and spend the next three hours becoming familiar with the sheer volume of choices at your fingertips. Whether you are satisfied with your network or are considering a change, it's clear that there is always room for improvement. Perhaps that's the primary difference between a "network" and a "notwork" -- the willingness to improve results for you and your brand with each placement on each campaign.