Rethinking the ad server.

Scott Rafer dropped by the office the other day and got me thinking about two things that I had not previously connected. Scott is good at this.

We were talking about closed loop systems like Bit.ly and how this data, inside the conversation management platform like SocialFlow would change marketing. Brands would understand the connections between conversation and action, this type of activity would grow beyond community management, complementing acquisition and brand marketing. Or at least that was what I was thinking.

The context for me was our ongoing struggle to innovate advertising delivery at a pace that kept up with media innovation. You would expect ad form to follow media form, but media has changed so quickly and become so fluid, advertising has not kept up. Our AdFrames platform was a small step in addressing this problem. Ads were designed to fit in any size, maximizing publisher flexibility, putting emphasis on performance over form.

The complete disintegration of banner form is the logical evolution… a world where the advertising is deconstructed into a set of assets (content, images, video, links etc) and rules – a brand API. Publishers could innovate around the API to integrate experiences, manage performance and augment advertisers data set with their own (for a bit more on this, below is a presentation I made on a similar idea a couple of years ago at our event 7 Minutes to Reinvent the Internet). We are seeing the beginning of this with text ads – search and twitter. 

More broadly however, the connection between two worlds - conversation management and message delivery – is, I think, the inevitable direction of modern ad serving. Combine the messaging flexibility of a brand API, semantic analysis capability of a conversation management platform, the message delivery pedigree of ad server. Give it a feedback loop. Measure impact beyond the immediate interaction (ie earned media). 

This seems like the future of ad delivery inside the socially connected borg mind. Gabriel DeWitt, Say Media’s ad serving guru, agreed but strongly suggested I stop calling it an ad server. He thinks Content Delivery Engine is a better description. Content Delivery - social, content rich, interactive experiences, cross platforms. Engine - lightening speed, keeping up with the flow of conversation.  Ok.

   

Comments

[Dogster]

Great crystal ball work. I entirely agree.

[Troy]

thanks dog.

[Tedr]

Heh! Used twitter OAuth while I was logged into Dogster account.

But also meant to ad: Ready to hazard any guesses on how long it takes majority of brands/buyers to accept this future? IMHO the majority have a long way to go to get beyond CPM/CPA. Even CPE is still training wheels compared to full-blown Brand API.

[twitter.com/aweissman]

this is fantastic. this quote

"The complete disintegration of banner form is the logical evolution… a world where the advertising is deconstructed into a set of assets (content, images, video, links etc) and rules – a brand API"

has my head spinning. Really important

[Troy]

thanks for the comment, andrew. not quite as good as the mike watt quote.

[Sawickipedia]

It's amazing how big the online ad biz has gotten on incredibly outdated serving technology. API's don't exist, XML isn't even groked and 3rd party data syndication is a mess. For the sake of all of us Troy I hope you guys do successfully build a CPE. Great writeup.

[Tamara Higgins]

You may want to do what we did and have your own private label ad server.

We use http://www.adservingsolutions.com by Ad Serving Solutions.

This Ad Server Platform does display ads, video ads, mobile ads

Customizable and easy to use

They offer private label versions, white label versions, co-branding, co-ownership and ownership opportunities are available.

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