• by March 28, 2008

Dave Morgan's post last week in Online Spin, as well as this week's news from Forbes and ESPN, is a testament to where the online advertising industry is going. I discussed back in January that 2008 is the year when online publishers will harness the opportunity created by increased audience fragmentation and boutique independent publishing. Target audiences are progressively becoming more elusive and demanding, and advertisers are looking for new ways to reach them with relevant content in the right context. Premium vertical advertising networks are coming of age before our eyes.

As Dave pointed out, online advertising will continue to grow in 2008 and take spend away from more traditional media -- leaving us asking, "Where will that digital advertising budget be spent?" Major media companies need to figure out how to keep pace with the growth of online advertising spending and increase their value to advertisers. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- to increase their reach, major media companies need to create and cultivate premium vertical ad networks populated by independent publishers selected by their editors and aligned with their online properties.

Vertical ad networks created by trusted brands and knowledgeable entrepreneurs deliver premium inventory from high-quality sites in an efficient way to advertisers. Savvy entrepreneurs and traditional media companies who understand valuable content segments will grow their reach and offer advertisers high quality, relevant collections of sites where their brand will be embraced and where they can engage the audience.

In the face of fragmentation, large and small publishers can increase the value of the audience they deliver to advertisers through segmentation. The premium vertical ad networks are going beyond direct revenue generation and driving traffic and recognition through cross-network content syndication and exposing the best of the independent publishers to mainstream audiences. At Adify, we are committed to continuing to be at the heart of this transformation that we recognized two years ago by providing extensive expertise, cutting-edge technology and integrated services that enable these network builders to deliver strong advertising value, syndicate quality content and create communities of engaged thought leaders.

Companies like Forbes, Martha Stewart, NBC, IDG and more are expanding their reach with quality, exclusive vertical ad networks. Companies like Gay Ad Network, Good Health Advertising, Yardbarker and Gamers Media are creating new media companies based on their knowledge of the advertisers and publishers serving very distinctive audiences. As I discussed in a recent blog entry, AdAge.com recently announced that for the first time in four years, Avenue A/Razorfish saw a shift in their ad dollars from portals - down to 19% from 24% - to smaller sites and blogs of the long tail. How can advertisers and agencies reach this long tail? By leveraging premium vertical ad networks and the expertise of segmented category professionals dedicated to bringing together the best of the long tail under a brand reputation.