ADOTAS

Piece of cake, right? Well, no, considering that Skimlinks first had to integrate the tech brought over from the recently acquired AtmaLinks. But the result is a fully automated system that semantically analyzes page content for references to the 20 million products in Skimlinks’ database that stretch across numerous categories –including consumer electronics, fashion, beauty, mothering, automotive and lifestyle.

Without interfering with other publisher advertising efforts, Skimlinks enters relevant affiliate links — the coolest new feature in this edition is real-time in-text price comparison, which will make for stronger offers. Check it out:

“The net result for publishers is a more lucrative monetization solution that is also an informative user tool, helping consumers find the prices and retailers for the products they are reading about,” said Skimlinks CEO Alicia Navarro, who also penned a smart piece for Adotas on the challenges of in-text advertising last year. “Our new version of SkimWords achieves the right balance between high yield for publishers and high utility for consumers.”

Advertisers continue to pay high CPMs for campaigns, yet there is minimal linkage to sales and performance — so are they paying to largely be unseen by audiences who only care about content?

When AOL’s Tim Armstrong declared that “content is king” he was right on man levels. Content is why people come to a site — the masses don’t visit to see that fabulous banner ad. They come to engage with the content, and get frustrated if anyone interferes with this desire too much.

Content is also the most valuable part to monetize, if done right, because content is fundamentally what creates intent. Content creates a desire to do something: be it buy a product, read something new, discover more, etc. The key to monetization of content is to find a way to gently harness that created intent and a way to reward the content creator for the role they played in it — if it benefits another party materially.

Even more key, is to do this in a way that doesn’t corrupt the editorial integrity of the site, or interferes or compromises the user experience.

In-text advertising has been a valuable evolution in the space as it overcomes ad blindness, affecting brands using traditional display ads. In-text advertising using pop-ups is certainly effective at commanding users’ attention, and as a result, brands pay top dollar for it.

However, there are three challenges to the dominant form of in-text advertising as led by Vibrant Media and Kontera:

Impact on user experience. The fact that the in-text pop-up interrupts the user experience can be seen as a positive — it certainly ensures the user sees the ad. However, animosity simmers away towards this type of interference, and although users probably don’t defect from a publisher purely because they use this form of monetization, they would certainly prefer something less intrusive. Users generally understand that publishers need to earn an income if they are to continue creating quality content for free consumption, but the ideal would be that this is performed with minimal interference.

Relevance. To earn solid revenues from in-text advertising, there needs to be significant user interactions with the ad. The most efficient way to ensure broad base coverage across their publisher network is to leverage common generic words that have a high propensity to be mentioned on many sites. The down side is a frequent dissonance between the keyword being used and the resultant ad shown in-text.

We can probably all relate to finding a strange combination between keyword and in-text pop-up ad. To be fair, this strategy does achieve the quickest and broadest distribution of an advertisers’ ad, but does it result in acceptable non-accidental click-throughs and sale conversions?

Value to advertisers. Accidental click-throughs are the biggest concern for advertisers interested in monitoring a relationship between ad spend and sales conversion. Advertisers purely interested in brand awareness may care less as long as their logo and message is being viewed. But as we see performance marketing growing at 16% a year and the fastest form of online advertising, advertisers will become more demanding of their ad spend, and expect spend to be linked to sales or other engagement measures.

These three challenges inspired us to build SkimWords as an extension to our core SkimLinks offering. There will always be a market for in-text pop-up advertisers like Vibrant and Kontera, they have done a great job of building a lucrative form of monetization for many publishers. However, we think there is an opportunity to grow the market further, and offer publishers and advertisers an additional means of monetization that does not impact the user experience, is relevant and offers direct measurable value to advertisers.

The key is to be transparent using subtle but clear disclosure messages, to develop scalable ways to build out long-tail keywords lists that are granular and unambiguous, and to link ad spend tightly to performance metrics. This is where we see an exciting future in the in-text monetization space.

Many of today’s blogs, whether they focus on business, technology or entertainment, have gained notoriety alongside their traditional media counterparts. Put simply, blogs look like they’re here to stay.

As blogging beings to reach a level of maturity, the individuals behind them are beginning to realize the monetization potential that exits as their reader base continues to grow. It’s becoming increasingly recognized that in order to stay ahead of this competitive market, bloggers must tap into potential revenue streams to support future content development.

Successful Blogvertising

It can be argued that part of the popularity of blogs lies in their back to basics, non-commercial stance — most have been created outside corporate walls without the banners, pop-up ads, and other monetization tools typically associated with more traditional websites. This means they have gained success and a user base without the luxury of an advertising stream to support their growth.

Now, with the blogosphere growing and competition heating up, the question must be asked: how long will bloggers be able to compete without tapping into ad revenue streams? There are several different schools of thought when it comes to successful blogvertising.

Scoping out the Options

Several companies have launched that facilitate advertising on blogs – from display ads to Pay-Per-Click ads – and these companies are having varying degrees of success.

One option that is starting to gain traction is the in-line or in-text ad model. This is arguably the ideal option for bloggers wishing to implement less obtrusive ads onto their sites. With this model, keywords within the actual content of web pages are highlighted and when users mouse over these keywords, floating Pay-Per-Click Ads appear.

Some providers’ in-text advertising products also allow site search options, so related editorial links appear alongside the sponsored content. A user can choose to explore a blog’s related postings, click through on the ad listing or simply close the floating ad unit and continue reading the blog.

As advertising on blogs becomes more prevalent, there is one important factor for bloggers to consider – finding advertisers.

Blogging for many is a part time hobby — a soapbox that can be jumped on outside a day to day job. As such, devoting time to sourcing advertisers and managing the technical aspects of ad implementations is simply not a viable option. As a result, it’s likely to be the ad networks that will become most prevalent in the blogvertising space rather than directly sold ads. For advertisers these networks will give access into a previously unattainable media channel and one that speaks to consumers in a far less corporate environment.

In the End… It’s all about MONETIZATION

Despite all of the viewpoints being discussed, one thing is for sure: as the blogosphere becomes a more and more mainstream media outlet, there are bound to be some major shifts in blogs as we now know them.

All bloggers will inevitably come to a fork in the road when it comes to integrating advertising as a means of monetization. Only time will tell what their decisions will ultimately mean for their sites, for advertisers and for the state of the blogosphere.

The campaign utilizes the new IntelliTXT word ownership program which gives advertisers exclusive access to the words of their choice on every publisher. Because the ad unit is completely user-initiated, BCRF’s message will target users who are demonstrating an interest by interacting with the highlighted phrase.

“We are very grateful to Vibrant Media and Wilson for their support, and know that highlighting ‘breast cancer’ in pink across the Internet will evoke a strong response from the millions of people affected directly and indirectly by this disease,” said Myra J. Biblowit, president of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Doug Stevenson, CEO and Co-founder of Vibrant Media added, “The branding and targeting capabilities of IntelliTXT VIDEO have been proven by top-tier advertisers, and it’s an honor to help generate awareness through user-initiated commercials for such a worthwhile cause as breast cancer research and awareness.”

The campaign will be seen on a number of health and women’s sites like iVillage, Oxygen.com, Shape.com, and Nubella.com, and Wilson will donate one dollar to the BCRF for each click on the video ad unit, up to $100,000.

Since users spend so much time looking at content, there was clearly an advantage in utilizing content pages for advertisements. But banner and text ads were easy to avoid, while other mediums could be intrusive. Yoav Shaham saw an opportunity to do something different with the content pages to include advertising that not only refrained from invading the online experience, but more importantly, was relevant.

Already fond of working with numbers, Shaham summoned his experience with computers, business, and contextual advertising at eZula to launch Kontera, an in-text advertising solution. In short, Kontera developed a system that finds contextually relevant keywords on a publisher’s web page in real-time and automatically matches them to relevant ads presented as in-text sponsored keyword links. Users view the ads only when they mouse-over, making it an extension of the content, and the degree of relevancy makes the user more likely to click on a link and act on the offer.

Early last month, Sequoia Capital and Lehman Brothers took notice of Kontera’s highly technological approach in light of scarce advertising real estate and the high demand for online advertising inventory. The companies entered into a deal to provide Kontera with $7 million in funding, reflecting a growing investor interest in the online advertising space. Shaham recently spoke with ADOTAS to give us a rundown of just how Kontera began quietly inserting relevant ads, what he feels about in-text competitors, and why relevancy is king.

So, to start off, how did you get into online advertising?

We got into online advertising when we saw that the problem with search is that users are only using search 5% of the time when they are online. The other 95% [spent engaging with content] was not utilized well enough for advertising. So we decided that there is a huge opportunity here to get into a new market and it started with in-text advertising.

What were you doing prior to Kontera?

I was on the management team of eZula [a contextual advertising solutions provider for online advertisers and publishers]. Prior to that, I studied computers and business at [school].

So what would you say in-text advertising brings that is different from other advertising approaches? How does it have a greater appeal?

That’s a great question. In-text advertising basically answers a need for the three types of players that we see in our market, whether it is the advertisers that are having [supply shortages] for their needs, or whether it is the publishers that are looking to make incremental dollars, which means making more dollars on their pages.

We allow them to make additional revenue from the webpage because in-text advertising can reside together with Adsense, with the banners of other players, and just provide additional dollars. Then there are the users, of course, [whom] we allow to see relevant information, and relevant advertising while they’re browsing the Web, when the companies provide them with an additional way of interrupting the content online.

“It’s great to be recognized by Inc. magazine as one of America’s fastest growing companies, and we see this as a strong validation of Vibrant Media’s ability to engage users with relevant and effective advertising,” said Doug Stevenson, co-founder and CEO of Vibrant Media. “The recent launch of IntelliTXT VIDEO has opened in-text advertising to brand marketers for the first time, who are taking advantage of our capacity to deliver over 200 million user-initiated commercials per month. This increasing demand for video campaigns and our continued global expansion will accelerate Vibrant Media’s rapid growth for the future.”

More than 1,200 publishers currently use IntelliTXT campaigns in seven languages and service such advertisers as Microsoft, Sony, Nike, Intel, and Warner Brothers.

“Static text advertising will always be a form of marketing for on-line retailers,” said LinkWorth president Ron Wicker in a statement. “It is the most basic form of Internet advertising that exists, and it’s dated years before the current Internet advertising giants. Our customers have shown a strong interest in what we have always offered along with a more unique way to drive targeted users to their websites on a per performance basis. Our new in-text technology will do exactly what they want all from their existing account.”

LinkWorth’s software will match up advertisers and publishers and place contextually relevant in-text ads directly into the content of a page, something that’s not usually monetized. LinkWorth believes their contextual approach and advertiser-publisher matching system will help increase ad click-through rates. The official launch of the beta will occur later this month.

Unlike banner ads, Kontera’s ContentLink technology turns specific keywords within the content of a Web page into PPC links ads. The scheme is designed to increase ROI by putting ads directly in front of a website visitor’s eyes, but it also allows publishers monetize the areas of their pages that can’t display traditional banner ads because they’re filled with content.

“ContentLink uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze the content in real-time, figure out the intent of the user on that page, and identify and serve immediately the best keyword-to-ad match available from within Kontera´s publisher & advertiser network. And not only is the ad mapped to the user’s immediate frame of mind, but it is also 100% user-initiated. They either mouse-over or not,” added Shaham. “This round of funding will aid Kontera as we grow and become the de facto In-Text Advertising Solution for online publishers, advertisers and users.”

IntelliTXT VIDEO ads improve on Vibrant’s existing service, which offers user-initiated text ads that appeared in a small window when the user demonstrated interest by mousing-over a double-underlined word or phrase. Only now, IntelliTXT VIDEO ads offer advertisers the ability to include video with audio, Flash, or static images such as logos.

“Advertisers recognize the potential for video advertising on the Internet, but delivering video through banners, interstitials and pre-roll has only added to the noise of the Web,” said Doug Stevenson, co-founder and CEO of Vibrant Media, in a press statement. “IntelliTXT VIDEO is the only rich media-enabled medium that lets users decide which topics they’d like to view advertisements on. This provides immense value to advertisers looking to engage a highly targeted audience with their most effective creative for branding and awareness.”

According to 2006 comScore stats, IntelliTXT VIDEO campaigns give advertisers access to 65 million unique users worldwide

Vibrant Media is currently running IntelliTXT campaigns across more than 1,000 publishers worldwide, and has expanded its global presence to deliver IntelliTXT in seven languages. The company analyzes 500 billion words and manages four billion words each month for top advertisers including Microsoft, Sony, Nike, Intel and Warner Brothers.

“Sequoia Capital invested in Kontera because its ContentLink(TM) In-Text Advertising Solution provides online publishers and advertisers with a proven technology with a verified business model. ContentLink(TM) offers online publishers an opportunity to create incremental ad revenue from its existing content, complementing existing banner and pay- per-click advertising programs while solving current problems of ad inventory and web page real estate,” said Sequoia partner Haim Sadger in a statement.

Kontera is billing ContentLink as a system for publishers who already use other forms of advertising (like PPC or banners) and are looking to add a little extra advertising to increase ROI. In-text advertisements appear within the content of a page, so they don’t take up screen real estate like banners, and since ContentLink interprets a page’s content on-the-fly, it can be used with user-generated pages like blogs, forums, and user-generated product reviews.