• by Lynn Russo Whylly , January 26, 2007

Blind-ad networks have their place. But now there's a content-targeted network that lets advertisers choose the sites - even individual pages or sections of sites - their ads appear on. The goal is to create more relevance, and turn the already interested captive audience into a new customer.

Called AdSonar from Quigo, the network is auction based, with payment on a cost-per-click basis. Quigo offers both contextual placement and PageMatch, where advertisers bid on a general topic and AdSonar's category-matching technology determines the best placement for each ad. The company projected it was going to achieve close to 10 billion impressions last December.

"Transparency makes publishers more money," explains Henry Vogel, chief revenue officer at Quigo. "In our network, a marketer can bid $1 for ESPN and 10 cents for a blog site. They can't do that on Google or Yahoo."

Publishers include powerhouse brands such as ESPN, Cox Newspapers, Fox, Fodor's, and Computerworld. Since switching from Google to AdSonar, Vogel says that Cox has reported two to three times higher revenue.