iMobile Publisher was designed to give publishers in the AzoogleAds performance ad network the ability to check all facets of marketing campaigns including payment history, leads, stats, clicks and effective CPCs. It’s free to AzoogleAds publishers and will be available for download on iTunes shortly. Rollout and expansion to AzoogleAds’ publisher base is expected in early 2009 with enhanced functionality.

“We have found that our publishers increasingly use iPhones, and so this product was born out of marketplace opportunity,” said Greg Bayer, Senior Director of Product Management for Epic Advertising. “We wanted to build something that makes life even easier for the publishers that work with us, and we strive to deliver innovative tools to them which set us apart from other networks.”

Leveraging proprietary and patent-pending contextual and behavioral targeting technologies, and the over 38,000 publishers in its network, AzoogleAds provides its advertising partners with performance and direct response marketing ROI and worldwide online reach via transparent display and search consumer traffic.

Publishers on AzoogleAds’ network will now have access to international advertising inventory in sectors including financial services, media, retail, travel and leisure markets.

“AzoogleAds is uniquely capable of providing our advertisers with targeted distribution,” stated Marco Corsaro of 77Agency. “They have a publisher base with breadth and depth, and a commitment to the highest possible industry standards. In addition, this agreement allows 77Agency to establish a presence in North America. For these reasons, we are very enthusiastic about this partnership.”

Don Mathis, President of AzoogleAds said “Partnering with 77Agency represents a new phrase in our expansion plans both in North America and abroad. As we look to grow the business, there will be a strong focus on providing publishers with additional monetization capabilities and advertisers with highly targeted, high-quality traffic.”

The company will also make full restitutions to Florida consumers who were deceptively billed for “free” mobile phone content. Anonymous sources told Adotas that the amount of restitutions is well into the tens of millions of dollars range, on the order of $40-$50 million.” Additionally AT&T Mobility will be paying out $2.5 million to the Attorney General’s Office to fund the efforts towards reform across the industry and $500,000 towards consumer education on safe internet use. These payments are similar to donations made by World Avenue USA, AzoogleAds and Adteractive.

The cooperative agreement between the two entities will also create new model for the advertising billing of cell phone content. AG Bill McCollum stated “Consumers should never be billed for services they thought were free of charge. Today’s agreement establishes a precedent for wireless companies accepting responsibility for the way phone content is advertised on the internet and the manner in which charges are passed along to consumers. AT&T should be commended for being the first wireless company in the industry to offer this reform.”

Complaints filtered into the Florida AG’s CyberFraud Task Force that led to an investigation finding thousands of Florida AT&T Mobility users that had received charges on their cell phone bills for certain third party services that they didn’t authorize. These charges came mainly for ringtones and other services that were advertised as “free,” but in fact turned out to be costly monthly subscriptions for third-party content.

Industry insiders are also excited by what the reforms by AT&T mean to the market as a whole going forward. Don Mathis, President of AzoogleAds commented on the news to Adotas saying “This announcement from the Florida Attorney General underscores that there is a right way – and a wrong way, as evidenced by the specific examples provided in the Florida AG’s press release – to engage in providing mobile content to consumers and to market it. In the past, some companies relied on a perception of regulatory ambiguity to engage in practices that are deceptive to the consumer, and have bilked lots of money from unsuspecting people. Well, there is no ambiguity anymore. This settlement with AT&T sets a bright-line standard. You either comply with it, or you are on the wrong side of the law. This is an important step towards cleaning up the industry and leveling the playing field. If you are doing the right thing, this can only help you. If you are not, you are in trouble.”

Brad Ashwell, legislative advocate for the Florida Public Interest Research Group stated “This settlement comes at a time when the digital consumer is faced with new deceptive internet scams on a daily basis. It’s encouraging to see a corporation of AT&T’s magnitude taking responsibility for unfair charges and it is encouraging that the funds from this settlement will ensure that the Attorney General’s CyberFraud Task force continues protecting consumers in the virtual marketplace.”

The Epic Ad Center is based on the idea that every aspect of online advertising should be simple from the advertiser’s perspective, but requires rich data-mining and ad delivery technology in order to generate the highest yield for advertisers and publishers. “Advertisers using the technology should find the program simple and transparent. The simplicity is masking the complexity of the data and work put into the program,” said Sprouse.

Featured in the Epic Ad Center is the “Ad Wizard” which gives advertisers the ability to create display, text and coupon ads for free. Users upload their own images, text or logos into a variety of templates, and the Ad Wizard auto-generates flash banners in multiple IAB formats immediately. After this, advertisers can then choose to target their campaigns demographically, geographically and behaviorally. The service also has a fixed PPC pricing model.

AzoogleAds combines the ad inventory from the Epic Ad Center with that of its existing national advertisers. This means that small and medium business who otherwise could not afford to advertise on large web properties will have exposure on those sites. It is the use of scientific algorithms to optimize an advertiser’s campaign that sets Epic Ad Center apart from other self-serve platforms.

The service, currently in limited, invitation-only beta testing, marks the first effort by AzoogleAds to have a create-and-manage-your-own CPC platform. Sprouse concluded by saying “We have been in business for seven years. This was a demand-driven development. Small and medium sized advertisers were asking for ways to work with us. Now, we have something for everybody.”

Because of its upstanding practices and transparency with its users, AzoogleAds has teamed up with the FLAG Bill McCollum to assist in some way with proceedings. “It is not completely clear what our role will be in this ongoing investigation,” said AzoogleAds CMO Mike Sprouse. The company is raising eyebrows however, over a contribution of $1 million it has made to the “Cyber Fraud Task Force” heading up the inquiry as part of the cooperation agreement.

The money was addressed in a statement put out by AzoogleAds on Wednesday stating, “This contribution reinforces AzoogleAds’ commitment to improving industry standards in the fight against fraudulent and deceptive internet advertising and exhibits its total commitment to internet compliance leadership not just in the mobile marketing vertical but all verticals.” “We are looking at leveling the playing field,” said Sprouse. He continued that with so many companies using fraudulent practices, there is a bad name being blanketed over the mobile marketing industry and few who would take action about it until now.

The statement continued that the company’s “exemplary compliance efforts have put them in a position to help the FLAG police and monitor the industry going forward like no other partner could.”

“As the advertising industry continues to evolve, marketers exploring the effectiveness of mobile marketing are faced with a new set of consumer protection concerns presented by this potentially powerful advertising venue. In response to these challenges, the AzoogleAds team has instituted an aggressive policy to ensure the integrity and the quality of the traffic we deliver to our advertising partners,” said Azoogle COO Don Mathis in a statement. “Our advertisers, as well as the mobile phone service providers, expect that the traffic we deliver is legitimate, informed and consensual.”

Azoogle is now requiring things like easy-to-understand terms of service, friendly opt-out procedures, strict customer privacy, and the rejection of questionable content. Azoogle also has Acceptable Use Policies for email and adware downloads.

2010 seems to be the magic year to which this industry clings when it comes to assessing its future success. But while we’re now used to the weekly case studies and research reports touting the boatloads of revenue set to arrive in ’10, a statement that sounds the death knell for what’s ideally been the most robust online ad model continues to spark interest.

Will CPA (Cost per Acquisition or Action, depending on your mood) kill off brand advertising/CPM in the coming years?

The persistent argument persuaded this writer to not only follow up with the source of the original comment—Joe Speiser, Co-Founder of AzoogleAds—, but pose the theory to other industry pros who sit on both sides of the fence.

True, opinions can often be laced with doses of hyperbole, but Speiser’s rhetoric, all bias aside, seems to carry some logic. With provinciality reigning in the old guard, which views the CPM metric as industry-standard, Speiser—though softening his initial IM commentary—remains adamant that the paradigm shift is inevitable. “I don’t think CPM will ever disappear entirely,” he admits, “but I do think that within less than 10 years, there will be a very significant shift of the top media buyers from the older minded CPM metric to the relatively new, but safer CPA.”

Speiser recalls the moment when CPA began to take off, emerging from the ashes of the bust with the hopes of infusing a more results-driven model. “CPA really started to take off right after the bust of 2000, and it was in that year accountability became a focus,” he says. “Advertisers and agencies couldn’t afford to spend on a CPM any longer without guaranteed results. Shareholders were clamoring for a cut back on excessive media spending with the hope of an ROI sometime in the next X years. This forced buyers to look for an alternative.”

Speiser views present-day CPA still as anything but static. “These days, while CPA has been in the shadow of CPM and CPC, it hasn’t been standing still. There have been huge advancements of measurement, and creative optimization that places many CPA campaigns on par if not above the average CPM rates.”

Considering that a CPA model plays an important role within the AzoogleAds network, Speiser’s observations can be construed as partial. But there obviously has to be valid reasons why AzoogleAds and its leadership prefer per-action over impression, and it could be proven in their growing client base and campaign metrics.

But is CPM truly destined for greener pastures, or does it still have a place within the current context of interactive advertising?

“Fundamentally, this is about the integrity of our traffic, and it is about being an ethical company,” said Don Mathis, Chief Operating Officer at AzoogleAds in a press statement. “Adware that fails to conform to our new AUP hurts our advertisers, hurts our affiliates, and is a blight on the industry at large.

He adds, “Ultimately, the value proposition of online advertising is connecting legitimate advertisers with consumers in a way which serves the interests of both parties. Most adware operators today, on the other hand, appear to be in the business of deceiving or defrauding consumers. They have no place in our business model, and indeed, no valid justification to exist at all.”

AzoogleAds’ new policy has 21 separate mandates designed to ensure that any downloadable software operates with genuine consumer integrity. For example, downloadable software must require obvious consumer consent, allow for easy removal, provide full disclosure / transparency, and be truthful. Furthermore, the downloadable software must provide fair value to users and advertisers, and control over its distribution. Its vendors must demonstrate a substantial track record of compliance, not just have adopted recent reforms after repeated misdeeds in the past.

Additionally, no providers of downloadable software will be permitted to operate with AzoogleAds, either as an affiliate or a source of traffic via any intermediary, unless explicitly approved to do so. Not surprisingly, the company expects that very few current adware providers will meet its new standards.

AzoogleAds has relied on the work of a number of organizations to develop both its policies and its compliance mechanisms on the adware issue, including consumer advocacy groups and individuals such as the Anti-Spyware Coalition, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Harvard Researcher, Ben Edelman.