• October 8, 2007

Aqua Media Direct announced the launch of Aqua Premium, a product aimed at providing advertisers with greater access to transparent, keyword-targeted inventory.

The product rounds out a trio of services that the Los Angeles-based online media company offers--making it the latest in a crop of small, independent firms to offer hybrid ad buys that blend the scale of performance networks with the options of category and site-specific targeting.

Aqua Premium aggregates inventory from more than 100 sites into 26 channels--and advertisers have the option to target by keywords or specific user behaviors, as well as to exclude certain sites from the buy.

"We created Aqua Premium to fill the void," said Tom Doyle, CEO, Aqua Media Direct. "It's more transparent than the performance model, and is more broad than the site-specific option."

The company's True Site Representation service lets advertisers handpick sites from a selection of 20 online publishers such as Weather Underground and Aesop Online--with the option of buying entire site-wide sections or sponsorships. Meanwhile, the Aqua Performance product is a standard ad network of over 1000 sites, with ad serving tech that automatically targets across 19 channels.

Doyle added that clients can choose to work with individual products--as Aqua Premium helps the agency better serve advertisers looking for supplemental inventory for existing campaigns or efforts, while some direct response clients are content using only the performance model. But according to Doyle, the company's broader goal is to offer advertisers a custom plan that "includes all three elements for maximum exposure and cost effectiveness."