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Answers Served: Infolink’s Treves Details New Self-Service Platform

Written on
Aug 22, 2011 
Author
Gavin Dunaway  |
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Answers Served: Infolink’s Treves Details New Self-Service Platform

ADOTAS - Although it already brings contextually targeted in-text ads to 250 billion pages of content each month that is viewed by more than 350 million uniques, Infolinks bills itself as the world’s fastest growing in-text advertising network.

That expansion is bound to keep up with the introduction of the self-service in-text advertising marketplace, which allows marketers to set up campaigns including choice keywords in minutes. In addition, the service includes keyword bidding based on verticals and geographies, as well as real-time reporting.

We demanded Chief Marketing Officer Tomer Treves explain what differentiate Infolinks from competitors and frequency metrics for in-text ads.

ADOTAS: How does your brand differ from other in-text advertising solutions like Flite, Kontera or Vibrant?

TREVES: Infolinks is by far the fastest growing in-text advertising network. It seems that our technology, which is much newer than our competitors, yields publishers and advertisers better results, and it reflects well in objective parameters, like Google Trends.

In any case, while we appreciate our competition, our publishers work exclusively with Infolinks so in order to place ads with them, the competition is not relevant. It’s no surprise that Google prefers Infolinks because other networks use old technology that among other things slows down website’s performance which is a big no-no in our fast pace world.

Also, the Infolinks technology advantage is clear when looking at how advertisers interact with the network – with the new Infolinks marketplace, advertisers can set up a campaign in less than 5 minutes and start measuring results immediately. While we do offer assistance from our dedicated account managers, media buyers mostly don’t need this hassle and they work on their on time with the need for long phone calls and emails.

You say “people are actively choosing to open the advertisement in a contextually relevant environment making them much more open to the advertiser’s message. Our service is an advertiser’s dream come true.” Please elaborate with a specific example.

Let’s say you prepare for a trip to Spain and read about its history in Britannica.com. The article has many links that don’t disturb the flow of reading, including double-underline links that you recognize as Infolinks links (we serve over 350 million users, you’ve seen them before). But then, the double-underline link on “Outside Madrid” interests you, and you actively choose to bring the mouse and hover over it.

At this point, a small bubble would appear with an ad to a nice boutique hotel outside Madrid. If this does not interest you, the mouse is moved away, the bubble disappears in an instant, and you continue reading. If it does interest you, you simply click.

But it’s not simple at all… on your way to the hotel’s landing page, you have actively chosen to get exposed to the ad and then click on it. The advertiser did not pay on arbitrary exposure, but for a willing visitor. This is the holy grail of advertising — real permission advertising, and it explains the high conversion rates and the smiles on advertisers’ faces.

What’s the metric for how many in-text ads the average consumer will accept?

Infolinks uses advanced algorithms to determine all the parameters involved in real time ad placement. In fact, we’re the only company to use real-time placement and it’s important in this dynamic market. This said, however, publishers get full control over their websites through the Infolinks member center.

Unlike other companies that require publishers to contact support for any changes, Infolinks publishers control the graphic appearance, including color and number of links, with a click of a button. So the publisher sets the borders and within these limits Infolinks dynamically chooses the best numbers to yield the optimal results.

What’s been the biggest challenge in developing in-text ads and selling them in to users and advertisers?

Change. People take time to accept change and the advertising industry is not different. We’ve seen this cycle before with every new type of advertising. Remember when ads on TV began? At first people were against it until they understood it finances better content for free.

It was the same with radio and with the first ads on Web. In-text ads also received their amount of objection at first, but now it’s becoming quote standard, so the challenge is to add it as a standard unit in the media mix in each and every online advertising plan.

And we’re getting there — this new Infolinks marketplace makes it so easy to advertisers to work with so it’s helping them accept it as standard.

What’s next for social media/contextual ads?

Less ads. Believe it or not, I’m not a big fan of ads. When I try to read an article, I don’t enjoy jumpy animated ads and expanding banners. But with the efficiency of Infolinks ads that allow people to read with so much less interruption and open ads only when they are truly interested, publishers will learn that they can reduce the amount of ads to improve user experience. The new Infolinks self-serve marketplace is a big part of this revolution.





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