As slow as the adoption of RSS and RSS advertising has been, it’s certainly here and not going anywhere anytime soon. With the influx of downloadable RSS applications, news aggregators and third party companies like Yahoo! offering the service; it’s cheap and available and has become one of the buzzword of the last couple years. That said, it’s got a lot of growing up to do.

At this point in the game it seems more of an awareness issue than anything else. As a Yahoo Ipsos study (below) tells us, 12% of users have heard of RSS, but only 4% have knowingly used the technology—an eMarketer report from this month found that 9% of U.S. online users were familiar with the term. But it’s also really about how a user gets RSS feeds that explains this slow adoption process. The study also finds that 27% of Internet users consume RSS syndicated content on personalized start pages like My Yahoo! and My MSN without knowing that RSS is the enabling technology (instead of downloading an application like RssReader, for example).

But as for how the advertising side of the equation adds up, just as the technology itself, it’s inching its way into mass media recognition. With more and more people buzzing about how the consumer is now making all of the decisions about when and by whom they may be marketed to, many view the naturally 100% opt-in, spam-free RSS as a welcome technology.And while the consumer may now be calling the shots in terms of advertising and marketing online and offline, RSS is still falling behind in terms of that precious little strategy called “targeting”. Sure, advertisers can narrow down their targets simply by the subscription nature of RSS, but getting directly to each person the way behavioral targeting advertisers have been able to is only one of the facets in which RSS has room to grow.

The good news is that there are plenty of companies dipping their toes in and even more interest from investors. But just as in the case of many of our interactive technologies, it would appear that the masses are waiting it out to see what works and what doesn’t before diving in headfirst.

Companies like Feedster, an RSS feed search engine, has been around since March ’03 and within two years closed a Series A of venture financing. NewsGator, an RSS platform provider also founded in 2003, has already closed three rounds of financing between 2004 and 2005. And with a January 2006 eMarketer report finding that of recent ad:tech attendees, 7.6% said RSS would be a marketing tactic they’d drop $100,000 to experiment with (click below for full chart), there’s obviously some serious momentum building up.

So rather than wait for the chips to fall, we at ADOTAS decided to make a day of it and explore RSS further, not only through our lauded surveys of those most attuned to the industry, but firsthand editorials from RSS leaders as well as a profile of companies making some of the biggest impact. Today, you’ll find feedback and insight from executives like Feedster CEO Chris Redlitz, PrimeQ’s Brandon Erskine and Feedburner VP of Business Development Brent Hill, who just like many industry insiders, believe that from both an advertising and publishing standpoint, it’s only the beginning for RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has received a lot of attention recently as an additional channel for advertisers to deliver their message. By syndicating what search engine marketers have been singing for years, content more specifically, relevant content is delivered directly to the subscriber’s desktops via aggregators like My Yahoo! or NewsGator. With each new channel comes the concern about maintaining brand integrity and the various messages advertisers want to communicate.

Currently about ten to 15 percent of RSS feeds now carry advertising, with increases being seen by technologically driven brands. Brand advertisers like Citrix Online, Dell, and Vonage have seen measurable results due to the technically-savvy makeup of early RSS adopters.

Yahoo’s whitepaper on mainstream RSS usage mentioned “ease” or “convenience” as the leading benefit of RSS with news, weather, and blogs as the top three forms of RSS content currently being accessed by users.

RSS User Demographics

• 71% Male
• 50% 18-34 yrs old
• 36% College graduates
• $74,116 Average Household Income

Why it’s a good time to advertise with RSS

• 100% opt-in
• 100% open rate
• Content is delivered directly to the desktop
• Affluent audience
• Granular targeting
• High CTR

Options for Advertisers

Before we delve into how maintain brand integrity, let’s look at the current advertising options in the RSS space.

Pheedo

Pheedo launched in 2004 with purpose of bringing advertisers to Blogs. They currently have 11,000 Blogs in their ad network with various tiers assigned to publishers based on theme. Targeting is topic or site specific with the Blogger having ultimate control of whether an advertiser will appear on their blog. Pricing is based on the CPC or cost-per-click model and according to Pheedo’s whitepaper advertisers are seeing click through rates exceeding email.

FeedBurner

Founded in 2003, FeedBurner works with approximately 164,000 publishers including podcasters, bloggers, and commercial publishers. Pricing is currently on a CPM basis.

Feedster

Established in 2003, Feedster has partnered with AdBrite to provide advertisers the ability to search specific blogs, and customize ad copy for each site or purchase run-of-network ads.

Now back to your brand.

If you’re concerned about the integrity of your brand, here are a few steps to take:

1. Review the RSS ad networks editorial guidelines and ensure they are congruent with your brands message
2. Consider how your ad will be seen differently in the various RSS aggregators. Look forward to Internet Explorer and Outlook providing native RSS support and some type of standardization.
3. Ask the current RSS ad networks about their ad frequency, placement, and their recommendations.

Following these steps should help with your overall brand management objectives and ensure that your investment maintains its fundamental value.

RSS Adoption

The big boys of brand Yahoo and Google have both begun experimenting with RSS feed advertising in the form of Adsense and Yahoo sponsored links via Feedburner. This adoption of RSS as an advertising channel will signal other smaller advertisers to jump on board and begin experimenting as well.

RSS while still in its infancy has tremendous growth possibilities. User transparency will help increase readership and overall adoption. Advertisers looking to capitalize on this growth should consider currently testing their campaigns with RSS and become familiar with the metrics, the medium, and of course their audience.

As we all know, this marketer’s utopia quickly became a haven for intrusive offers, fraudulent operators, and schemers. Mailboxes filled with garbage and the opt out process seemed endless. Spam filters have become much more effective in recent years, but we still receive the occasional Viagra renewal notice. Branded advertisers are shying away from email marketing because of the negative connotation associated with a channel fraught with spam. Consumers are becoming hesitant to subscribe to anything for fear of having their email address appear on “opt in” lists and getting caught in the spam “spiral”.

So, is there an alternative that can provide some of the same nuances that email promised and did not deliver? The answer is time will tell, but the emergence of RSS provides hope that one-to-one marketing has found a home in this new emerging platform. The proliferation of RSS as an outbound mechanism for content distribution continues to grow at a very rapid pace*. The ability for people to subscribe to their favorite feed will become much more intuitive with release of the new IE7, MyMSN, and MyAOL.com.

Content increasing and subscription rates rising, again a very appealing prospect for marketers. There are some unique features that RSS presents:

-100% opt in
- conduit for direct subscriber-marketer messaging
- simple opt out process
- requires no personal identification
- user control over update frequency
- cannot be externally spammed
- no limits on feed subscriptions
- appropriate for contextual advertising
- potential to reach micro audiences

What’s the attraction for feed producers i.e. news services, blogs, ecommerce companies, newsletters etc.? Feed producers (publishers) view RSS as a distribution mechanism that allows readers to subscribe to their feed and receive it directly into their portal page or newsreader. Publishers can utilize feeds as a very effective method for communicating their information and/or point of view. Nytimes.com was one of the most significant early adopters of RSS in the branded media world. They currently offer 65 RSS feeds and a dozen different regularly updated podcasts. Because a user is subscribing directly from the content source, the feed cannot be externally spammed. So the onus is on the publisher to provide relevant content, non-intrusive advertising messages, and be respectful of their subscribers’ sensitivities. It’s easy to opt in, but also easy to opt out.