Posted in Internet Marketing Strategy	December 3, 2007

When attracting advertisers, it's not about the hair and makeup, it's about the adroll and tagroll

What kind of world are we living in, where even ad-space has a place in social networking? An online publishers world, that's what!

If your website is ad-driven, you might be interested in this new online advertising haven called Adroll.com. This free ad-network was created by Jared Kopf, a young entrepreneur listed amongst BusinessWeek's list of tech's best. Adroll.com is still in private beta, but if you're lucky enough to get your hands on an invitation (we have a few, if you'd like an invite let us know), or wait the 24 hours it takes to process a beta application, this new venture has a lot to offer the online publishing industry, and we should be watching closely.

According to the Adroll.com blog, "Ad Communities are a way for small and medium sized publishers to package and sell ad-space using a breakthrough ad-server and a "social network"-like matching system." What Adroll.com does is connect the online publishers to advertisers by aggregating publishers' ad-space so it's easier and cheaper to find. And not only easier to find, but the results are the hard to reach niches and highly targeted audiences that they are looking for.

The process is this: You create an adroll much like the blogrolls you see on blog sites that link to affiliate blogs. However, these ads in the adroll are bought by advertisers who have found them by the keywords/tags that the publisher has selected. Advertisers can also buy your keywords/tags. You will be matched to advertisers by the alike keywords that both you and an advertiser select.

You can even create your own ad-network with affiliate publishers. As a publisher, you may band together with other publishers to form "ad communities", where each community is self-controlled. They are publisher-assembled, publisher-controlled ad-networks. "Power in numbers" goes the same way in online advertising as it did in high school cliques. Joining a community (or starting one) will give you better exposure and credibility. This is the same for your adroll; the bigger it is, the more appealing it will be to advertisers. Advertisers can buy just on your site, or across communities you join or form.

If you are a publisher looking for an advertiser, finding someone to bid is like submitting your resume to a company that your best friend works for. You can look at an advertiser profile and see what they are shopping for. Look at which keywords/tags the advertiser has bought and plan accordingly.

They also do your bidding for you. You give them your lowest price on ad-space, and they'll only accept bids higher then your minimum. Then, because they're such champs, they'll take care of the rotation, scheduling, serving, swapping and billing for you through their free ad-server. How much easier can it get?

But this ad-network isn't just for you to accept ads, it's also for you to buy ads on other publisher sites. When you sign up, you have the option to sign up as both a publisher and advertiser if you wish. If you do intend to buy ads, it might be a little warm-up for you to browse other publisher profiles and find what makes a publisher popular.

Overall, social networking is booming in the online publishing industry, so why not create a community out of ad buyers and sellers? We appreciate entrepreneurial companies like Adroll.com because they provide publishers with a proactive outlet to keep up, and keep in touch.