Bespoke ad networks

So, Tweetie for Mac is out Monday, and the free version runs ads from FusionAds, which has an identical model to The Deck. I wrote about The Deck briefly briefly last year, and have kept an eye on it, since it always struck me as an interesting aberration. Now there’s two of them.

Completely bizarre, compared to a traditional ad network – no targeting or frequency capping whatsoever, a flat rate per month, no idea how much traffic you’ll receive, non-standard ad units… oy. Then again, you also get 100% share of voice – there’s no other ads on the page – and the sites tend to be very carefully selected. (Perhaps with the exception of the various Twitter clients, now that Twitter’s mainstreaming.)

Effective CPMs for The Deck have declined – they ran 37.3MM impressions in March, and is selling 4% of May’s inventory (there’s 25 slots) for $6900, so that’s an eCPM of $4.62. Same calculation a year ago gave an eCPM of $7.95. FusionAds sells 10% of ‘over 3MM impressions’ for $820 – an eCPM of $2.73.

I wonder if there will be more of these. I doubt a traditional ad network could set them up – you have to know your niche extremely well, the potential advertisers for your niche very well, and maintain strict quality control. Hmmm. Maybe there’s a platform play here, with you providing the technology and recruiting the network leaders… similar to Adify, but with more restrictions.