Two morning presentations (an address by Jordan Rohan and a panel discussion on "Vetting the Nets") left an unmistakable sense that people on the buying side are looking for more efficiency in their
ad network buys -- specifically, cost efficiencies -- specifically, paying less. First of all, the consensus seems to be that networks have become commodities because of their sheer numbers. There's
also a sense (not to say a sense of grievance) among buyers that too many ad networks engage in low-quality practices like "daisy-chaining" ads -- with ads sub-contracted out repeatedly across
multiple networks so, for example, the same ad can end up on the same page 4-5 times. Ad networks also hurt their sales position by refusing to submit to some kind of 3rd-party measurement, for
example by ad servers.
