Earlier today we (=Quigo) announced together with Time Inc a broad, exclusive, 3-year agreement to use Quigo's AdSonar for auction-based text link advertising on Time Inc websites. More coverage on this on the Quigo Blog. This deal is estimated to be worth north of $100M over the next 3 years.
This deal covers all of Time's leading online properties: Time.com, CNNMoney.com, People.com, EW.com, InStyle.com, SI.com, Golf.com, FanNation.com, SouthernLiving.com, SouthernAccents.com, Sunset.com, CottageLiving.com, CoastalLiving.com, CookingLight.com, MyRecipes.com and others in the future
If the publisher has the ability to attract advertisers directly, whether by having a great brand, and/or highly targeted audience, and/or a direct sales force (and Time Inc has all 3), it makes no sense to use a black-box solution like Google's AdSense for placement of ads. As I said a while back - that would be like a classy restaurant outsourcing it's kitchen to McDonalds... ;-)
There's definitely a trend going on here where more and more premium publishers are starting to understand this:
You can either take ads that were bidded to an ad network that has a blind mix of some good sites and lots of crappy ones (spammy/fraudulent/domain parked). In these blind networks, advertisers don’t really have the ability to choose which sites they’re on or optimize their bids for the quality of your traffic. Oh, and in the process of carrying ads from a blind ad network, you'll be handing your biggest asset - 100% of your advertiser relationships - over to that network.
Or - you can assume control of your advertising asset, sell to your advertisers at the premium you deserve, and own those advertiser relationships.
That's the unique angle Quigo brings to the table - the ability to capture the full value of a your brand and build a longer-lasting, strategic asset so that you get more than just a monthly rent check.
Most publishers are still under the influence of the Google koolaid. But the smarter ones are starting to realize that the bargain Google brings to the table benefits, well, mostly Google. It's great to see folks like Time Inc have the foresight to take back control of their advertiser relationships and become a leader in this space rather than become another node in the Google network.
Links:
- If you're an advertiser and would like to bid for placement on Time Inc properties, click here. Remember - this is now the only channel for placing CPC text ads on these websites.
- Full press release is here.
- More coverage over at ClicketyClack John Battelle's blog, BizReport, MediaPost, MediaWeek, Crain's, Direct Magazine and others.
- Brett Tabke of WebMasterWorld posted a video interview with Quigo's CEO - Mike Yavonditte.
- [UPDATE] Scott Karp at Publishing2.0 posted some excellent commentary on the bigger picture. Highly recommended.
Nice stuff... tough to keep track of all that is happening. I end up reading 100 odd blogs daily. Plus there is news. You could also enrich your blog by adding current news on your blog... try out the news widget from widgetmate.com
Posted by: Morris Young | June 27, 2007 at 09:41 AM