• by November 22, 2000

As the online ad industry continues to clean house, some advertisers are suddenly finding themselves with smaller ad budgets and less pull dollar-wise when it comes to getting placement on major websites. What's a media buyer to do?

There are several options - yes, I am still optimistic that someday, someone will figure out how to buy and sell media over the web - and this do-it-yourself ad exchange model maybe worth a try.

Silicon Alley-based Digitalroot - http://www.digitalroot.com - lets smaller advertisers aggregate their media buys to purchase inventory on big-name sites such as The Motley Fool, CBSMarketWatch.com, FOXSports.com and RollingStone.com, similarly to the way Mercata or MobShop get lower prices in return for automatically combining orders to buy in bulk.

With that model, Digitalroot may succeed, but only if they can convince more large sites (in addition to the ones above) to sell their inventory to a co-oped group of smaller sites. To that "if-you-build-it-they-will-come" end, the company recently partnered with an application service provider for small businesses - eCongo - whose clients will now have access to digitalroot's automated banner ad buy system.

You have to admit that a web-based application that gives small and mid-sized businesses access to online advertising on major media properties sounds like a good idea.