Ad Networks and eCommerce Sites… An Awesome Match
While some of the networks that use Adzerk migrated from platforms like Adify and OpenX, many didn’t exist at all until someone realized how easy it is to build a network with adOS. One of these networks is managed by Sophio, an automotive parts e-commerce platform that’s been a Web leader since 1999. We heard from Deb Glassman, Sophio’s Director of Client Services, about how serving ads through Adzerk has improved their business:
Tell us about Sophio, and how you got your ad network started.
We are an ecommerce platform for aftermarket automotive websites. We created an ad network to provide an additional revenue stream for our merchant publishers.
Where are you based?
Los Angeles.
How long has the network been around?
Two months.
What’s your biggest challenge with online advertising?
Convincing our merchant publishers that displaying ads will not negatively effect sales of their own products.
How have you convinced them?
In our vertical, the advertisers will be the manufacturers whose parts are sold on the individual merchant websites, so it will be very complimentary.
How do you find advertisers? Any tips or tricks?
Our publishers buy from 100 to 1000 suppliers of auto parts, all of which are big advertisers both online and offline. No problem finding them. Figuring out who is the decision maker is the only issue.
What has been your most effective remnant inventory monetization?
We have found Adsense has enough inventory to meet our needs without featuring duplicate ads on pages.
How has the network improved business so far?
We are in the earliest stages of our network, so our improvements can be measured in the additional services we are providing to our merchant publishers. As we begin to introduce the network directly to advertisers, we will see significant revenue increases for our merchants.
Do you have any advice for other eCommerce companies who want to expand into ad serving?
Chances are your customers think they are already seeing ads on your pages, so it is a very passive way to generate additional revenue monthly to cover operational expenses.
Why did you choose adOS? Anything it really helps you do well?
We spent lots of time looking for a cost effective ad server that offered an extensible API for customizing any of the entities we deal with (network, publisher, and advertiser). adOS offers that and it actually works!
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