Infolinks will launch a self-service In-Text Advertising Marketplace Monday that allows advertisers to create an in-text ad campaign, with numerous targeting options in minutes. Marketers familiar with Google AdWords or Microsoft adCenter will find the system easy to use, according to Tomer Treves, CMO of Infolinks.
Marketers can set up an account, each with several sub-campaigns. Each campaign can have ad groups. For each ad group, marketers can target categories, keywords, and geolocation. The cost per click (CPC) for each keyword or campaign gets a maximum and a minimum bid price. The platform allows marketers to segment geographic and vertical marketing budgets.
There are also advanced optimization features to customize maximum return on investment, as well as real-time reporting to monitor conversions. "From my own personal experience it takes less than five minutes to start the campaign and go live and get real-time results," Treves said.
Previously, Infolinks offered in-text ads through other networks. It would receive the requests by syndicating the signal through companies such as Marchex, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Before launching the self-serve platform, it could take days before advertisers would see a change to keyword CPCs.
The platform has been running in beta for about two months. Already, advertisers see higher conversion rates for approximately half the price to run ads in AdWords or adCenter, Treves said. "The cost of the acquisition is about 50% of what it would be in Google AdWords, and Microsoft adCenter," he said. "Marketers can get better conversion rates because CPCs are lower and interactions with users, higher."
Banner and video ads may battle over the attention of users, but it turns out that in-text advertising continues to grow in popularity. Since launching the company three years ago to compete with companies such as Kontera and Vibrant, the service now supports ads on 50,000 Web sites, across 250 billion pages in campaigns, 350 million unique users, and 50 million clicks monthly.
Could this work with automated speech-to-text transcriptions of video and audio content as well?