Content is still King, but can it Perform?

The recent online advertising buying-spree seems game changing.  Or does it?  Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, Microsoft's (my alma mater) acquisition of aQuantive and Yahoo's acquisition of RightMedia together are big news.  Over the past few months, technologies that manage the flow of more than $10 billion in ad spend have been snatched up by the publishers who control the ad inventory.  So the real question is... how do the advertisers win?

At the end of the day, content is still king.  And content that truly performs (high click-throughs/conversions) is even mightier.  But will the incentive for these oligopoly-hungry publishers to produce/syndicate great content dissipate as the 'third-party' nature of the targeting technologies vanish?  Google seems to be putting a good foot forward.  Jennifer Slegg had some cool things to say about how Google is improving their syndicated publisher (AdSense) network.  As Google weeds out the producers of bad content, it will be fun to follow the performance metrics of AdSense (we've been doing a lot of AdSense testing at BuzzLogic using our Influence algorithms), and see how advertisers react. My guess is that even after Google has weeded out the MFA sites, advertisers will still be demanding further performance optimization of the AdSense network.  And heck, those advertisers will be voting with their dollars.

As Emily Riley discusses here, Microsoft is extending its inventory by adding the DRIVEpm publisher network.  I'm glad to see MSN finally take another step forward in the syndicated publishing space. Adding behavioral targeting to the mix via DRIVEpm seems like a good move to me.  But Bill Gates needs to go a lot further to build a better mousetrap than Google's.  I'm curious to see how their strategy plays-out, as they attempt to add performance-content to their network.

Yahoo's main issue with YPN to date has been gaining enough insight into the power of their publisher network in order to monetize it effectively.  Delivering that inventory via RightMedia's 'exchange' platform should ultimately allow the market to drive best pricing.  But it still seems very hit-or-miss on which content or publishers to target in the first place - especially in today's user generated content-on-the-fly world.

A rising tide lifts all boats, and that's what I think this latest flurry of acquisitions will do.  I like to see this enormous gathering of brain-power all focused on moving online advertising forward.  At the same time, having worked at MSN for seven years, I know first-hand that big ships take a long-time to turn.  Microsoft, Google and Yahoo will be sorting through strategy, execution and culture issues for many months to come - slowing their ability to innovate.  The time is right for young companies to lead the next generation of online advertising technologies while the big-guns sort out their recent purchases. 

Comments

[Lynn Winters]

Very "insider" type article. The author is obviously someone really in the inner circle.
Thanks for all the heads up.