• by Joe Apprendi , Op-Ed Contributor, October 30, 2002

In the Debate over Ad Formats and Ad Standards, the Time Has Come for Ad Management

Following moves by AOL, EarthLink, and MSN to limit pop-up ads, it became clear to me that the industry is simply waving a white flag. Fortunately, changes are coming (and in some cases already here) that will help keep this from happening again.

Everyone agrees that consumers are unhappy with pop-ups (interstitials and pop-unders and the like). But if you drill a little deeper, you get statements like, “It’s not that the Orbitz ad was so bad, it’s just that there’s so MANY of them,” and “If the X-10 was an ad about (fill in their personal interest here), I wouldn’t mind so much.” That’s why iVillage and AOL, for instance, aren’t banning all pop-ups, just “unregulated” ones.

The ad format – floating ad, interstitial, expandable banner, standardized or not – isn’t the issue. Relevancy and control is.

That means rich media ad formats are the driving force behind online ad growth and, for many sites and agencies, profitability. In fact, Jupiter projects the percentage of online ad spending going to rich media ad formats to be 22% by 2007. It’s up to all of us not to screw it up.

The Current Process Isn’t Scaling Up Well

So, are we doing a better job delivering other intrusive ad formats? The report card is mixed. Many ad formats still are created and managed manually, making reporting and optimization slow, difficult and costly. Most ad format companies use different technologies for different ad formats, and the processes don’t simplify ad management for the publisher and agency/advertiser.

Talk to your average publisher. They’ll tell you how tough it is juggling demand and managing ad inventory for third-party ad formats. In fact, most publishers have no control over ad frequency or relevancy, causing some online consumers to get bombarded by a pop-up, a couple pop-unders, an interstitial and a floating ad on the same page. This adds up to not much more than playing Russian roulette with online advertisers and their target audience.

Choose Technology, Not Format

Imagine if publishers could have set frequency and targeting controls on all the pop-ups from the beginning: Would pop-ups have the reputation they have today?

Rich media ad management requires that kind of thinking. As the recent announcement by DoubleClick/Macromedia shows - not to mention the rapid growth over the last 18 months of companies who offer this technology already, like Eyeblaster - the solution involves using one technology platform for rich media.

Just as publishers currently use a single ad serving and management solution for their banners, many have already found success using one to control rich media ad inventory. This way, regardless of ad format (floating, pop-up, full-page overlay, commercial break, expandable banner, etc.), the publisher can set universal frequency control by user and time.

A single solution like this for multiple formats solves both inventory management problems and consumer usability issues at the same time. One intrusive ad unit every 15, 20, or 30 minutes per user? Let the publisher decide, and users will thank them.

It also resolves the standards issue, since whichever platform the publisher uses can easily support any rich media ad format standard(s) that the IAB and the industry eventually support.

When users are finally on your side with advertising, publishers will likely find it solves quite a few of the profit problems as well.