We’ve upgraded to Wordpress 2.5 and it looks fantastic, here inside the Admin CP. You can get it here: http://wordpress.org/download/ It’s even smoother than our control panel, speaking of which, have you signed up yet?

In fact, we might be doing a little something with Wordpress too, sometime. That’s a hint

    Operating in New York, we like to keep the tabs on local politics that might affect us, both personally and business wise. The New York Times reported last week that one of our representatives up in Albany (strictly speaking, he represents Westchester county, while we work in NYC) is taking the sword to devious internet data collection and marketing practices that violate the privacy of consumers and serve no good purpose.

Here is the bill in beautiful legal code: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A09275&sh=t

    Assemblyman Richard Brodsky isn’t your average internet hater or privacy advocate. Rather, he’s pushed through multiple bills on cyberspace security. He’s also an active proponent of environmental legislation and business reform in telecommunications. This bill is one of the first one’s of its kind. It bars companies from linking certain targeting data that they collect and linking it to personally identifiable information ie. your name and address. Most consumers don’t know just how much their behavior is being tracked on the Web. When you consider all this aggregated information, it adds up to quite a bit. From a few cookies and IP address readers, advertising networks and their data partners probably know your name, address, phone number, date of birth, gender, race, income level, education, email address(es), recent web history, overall pattern of browsing behavior, overall content of your emails or instant messages and more.

Using this information solely for targeting purposes is more or less benign in nature, but when advertising companies and their clients start to interact with consumers or judge them on information which visitors may not want to be associated with, a violation of personal privacy occurs. The implications of linking all this information is one of the major problems, though. This data is stored on a server by a marketing company who has built the physical computer server to be fast and reliable, not secure and resistant to threats. Hackers will be able to access this data and use it for their own schemes. Companies could look into the web behavior of a potential employee and could misinterpret the findings. Rival corporations could purchase contextual scans of web pages visited by employees of their competitors, potentially getting access to sensitive internal memos and emails.

This bill isn’t perfect, by all means. Brodsky is debating whether or not to include the IP address as a form of PII. IP addresses are essentially anonymous when they aren’t linked to other information, and are vital to the continuing operation of the internet. Services such as PayPal use IP addresses to block fraud. Ad companies use IP’s for, say, frequency capping popunders so they won’t be so annoying. But this legislation is definitely a good start to appropriate and fair regulation of data collection.

Here’s to 2007, a great year.

A few days ago we held the holiday Eid…. Happy Eid!  Happy Hanukkah as well, but we’re a bit late. And Merry Christmas to all.

And here’s to 2008, which will be an even greater year.

Advertising has gone through a lot of advancement, but when anyone mentions internet advertising, you’ll immediately think of advanced technology and nerdy engineers colluding to maximize results by any means necessary. One of the first metrics in use in online advertising, besides the fixed-rate ad, was the CPM advertisement. CPM ads are billed and paid for every 1000 impressions. (An impression basically translates to a view of the ad.)

Later on, the CPC, CPL and CPA metrics were developed. Ad network sold those metrics using terms like ”paying for performance” and various other catchy phrases. Of course, this is utterly untrue. Let’s take the popular CPC metric for example. We won’t disect and pick at miniscule issues. We will point out some of the major issues with the CPC metric, though. First, click fraud goes more than 25% on search engines, including Google®, Yahoo® and Live® Search. Ad networks at 16% aren’t much better.

 On a side note, notice that 60% of all click fraud comes from parked domains. Ouch. Luckily, your ads aren’t running on parked sites, right? Think again. Let’s visit this URL.

http://www.4yourstats.com/

The average parked page, no content, 60% click fraud rate, Google® ads sitting right in the middle. Isn’t it comforting to know that you’re wasting 60% of your money while you’re paying about $5 a click? But enough CPC bashing, let’s move to CPA and CPL.

 It would seem that the CPA and CPL metrics are a lot safer- after all, you really are paying for performance this time. Despite the fact that you’re probably paying 50-70% of your revenue for that performance, it’s all good. Except when you’re getting defrauded by another generation of scammers. Adotas® has an excellent article on this here:

http://www.adotas.com/2007/10/fraud-20/

The “Indy Virus” mentioned in the article is specially formulated to defraud advertisers working with CPL and CPA campaigns. Using various illegal and unethical methods such as identity theft, these cybercriminals pass you leads and conversions that seem completely real but are just the opposite. Some ad networks overlook this kind of fraud, since it brings in more revenue for them. Other ad networks are actively trying to fight it, but are being overwhelmed by the onslaught. And the advertiser is stuck in the middle. So, what are you supposed to do?

You could try a fixed-rate model and suffer the loss of ROI and risk overpaying for underperforming inventory. Or, you could go with Freedom of Ads and purchase media on an accountable CPM basis. Here’s how it works. You set up your campaign and media buy. Then, check the box to activate the SpotBot, our super tool for guaranteeing results. Finally, sit back and relax, knowing that your campaign is in the virtual hands of a very smart algorithm.

So, what is the SpotBot? The SpotBot is an algorithm that ensures that you obtain the results that you are looking for. Here’s what happens. You already know that we run every impression through a real-time auction before it is served (or if you didn’t know that, now you do.) The SpotBot kicks in right before the auction. It automatically compiles and analyzes the past performance of a particular piece of inventory (which is called a ’spot’ in the publisher interface, hence the name SpotBot.) The SpotBot tracks various statistics, such as CTR and conversion rates. If a spot is underperforming its peers, then your bid is automatically adjusted downward to match the relative value of the spot. If the spot is performing normally, or is an overachiever, then your bid remains exactly the same. Strong inventory performance is a right, not a privelege, and you shouldn’t have to pay extra for it.

Remember that use of the SpotBot is completely optional. Chances are that you’ll be working with it often, though. (Let me rephrase that- chances are that it’ll be doing the work for you often.) The SpotBot is just another great tool in our arsenal to guarantee results. Because we’re Freedom of Ads, and we’re driven by results. (Yes, that is our attempt at a catchy phrase.)

It’s my pleasure to announce our new strategic partnership with AdECN, one of the largest ad exchanges in the world. We’ve been working at this for a couple of months and our platform on AdECN is now live. Whoo!

A lot of our advertisers and publishers have been asking us about the new system. We’ve put together a Q and A right here, so that you can get your answers a little bit faster.

What is AdECN?

AdECN is one of the largest ad exchanges in the world, and we’re proud to be a member of the exchange. The exchange is a common platform where networks can trade inventory and media. Our membership gives us access to additional inventory, sophisticated technology, and a better experience for you guys, our clients. Basically, your ads and your inventory can now be traded to other networks, giving you maximum liquidity, results, and revenue. And that’s always a good thing.

What benefits does this bring me?

First, we now have access to the media and inventory of over 40 other premier networks, which extends our global reach. You’ll also love our new system- the look, the sophistication, everything else. Advertisers: You now have access to many more targeting mechanisms such as contextual, behavioral, and demographic ads. Publishers: We now support more ad types than ever. And everyone pays and gets paid with CPM, which is much better for both advertisers and publishers. We’ll explain in the next post.

How will I be affected?

We’re working very hard to pave the road between our system and the AdECN platform. For this reason, we’re keeping our current system open for all current advertisers and publishers. All new advertisers and publishers will be served through the AdECN platform. If you want to participate on the exchange, and already have an account with us, just sign up at https://freedomofads.adecn.com/public/register.jsp or open a ticket at http://support.freedomofads.com.

Thanks a Lot! You’re Awesome!

Yeah, we know. But it’s always nice to be appreciated.