Seattle-based online shopping service Mpire has launched "WidgetBucks," a portable ad unit geared specifically to merchants.
Companies ranging from Marchex to blog-hosting networks
like SixApart to the shopping giant eBay have tested the widget ads during the recent private beta period.
Publishers host the Flash-based applications on their page and Mpire's MerchSense
technology serves ads (such as coupons and deals on products from retailers like Target, BestBuy and Gap) that are contextually relevant to the shopping content.
The ads run on a CPM model, and
Mpire splits the revenue with publishers--offering current payouts as high as $4-$30 per CPM.
"The MerchSense contextual algorithm delivers a higher CPM because it's smart about what shopping
products are on the page and users are more likely to click," said Matt Hulett, president and CEO of Mpire.
Mpire's approach to comparison shopping uses algorithms to help users find the right
prices for products across a myriad of sites, and includes recommendations, user reviews and coupons.
Many of the same analytics were built into the WidgetBucks program--essentially distributing
all the information that Mpire has aggregated about various products across a network of blogs, social networking profiles and affiliate marketer sites.
The WidgetBucks come in standard IAB
formats, and publishers can customize them to display product info in the form of top 10 lists or other configurations, or allow MerchSense to populate it with real-time product info that's tied to
Mpire's analytics data.
Although the company has set goals for both market penetration and publisher adoption, Mpire is realistic about the increasingly crowded widget ad space.
"We're an
11-person company, so in terms of scale, a network like Google is going to beat us every time," Hulett said, addressing the fact that the search giant just launched the Gadget Ads model across the
vast AdSense network. "But we're being very specific--going after the 30% [of Web pages] that are finely tuned to shopping info and e-commerce. We only show products, so you'll never see a divorce
attorney ad in our widget."