Out with the old and in with the new – Generational Tools of SEM Bid Management
For the last five months I have entrenched myself in the realm of SEM bid management, specifically from the standpoint of the faculties that marketers use to manage SEM campaigns. It has been shocking to see how many larger online spenders are also operating on a manual basis. Many others have deployed what I will refer to as 3rd Generation Bid Management, but many SEM advertisers and agencies are either afraid to break from their manual processes or have had a bad experience with vaporware, customer service or integration to make the switch. In this post I ...
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 4/21/2009 5:46 PM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Google Dumps Yahoo – Finally
Google has finally recognized that this deal was never going to come true.  And the opportunity-line for Yahoo has been severed.  A Microsoft offer is not going to be at a premium, it’s going to be a lifeline.  Ultimately, two companies that have a proven history of being horrible at integrating acquisitions should not merge.  Yahoo and AOL coming together would represent the largest distraction in the industry, giving Google more time and opportunity to grow even faster and more furiously than before.  Over the next 6 months, Yahoo and AOL will lose more market share to Google while they ...
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 11/5/2008 3:02 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Yahoo-Microsoft Deal Inevitable?

Is the Yahoo-Microsoft Deal Inevitable?  Ballmer said a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! Inc. may still make economic sense for shareholders of both companies.  No need to review the already well-known history of this story.  Why is Microsoft waiting?  First, there is the Yahoo-AOL deal.  Second, is the DOJ investigation into the Google-Yahoo advertising deal.  Is this the end of an era?  “Do you Yahoo?” has been replaced with “Google-it.”  The DOJ has conducted literally over a hundred interviews these conversations have undoubtedly gone deeper than just the deal.  Finally, the DOJ has a solid understanding about why Google ...
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 10/27/2008 3:08 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Tech-Crunch Layoffs – Is it a Financial Crisis or a Clean-Up Opportunity, or Both?
So the economy took a nose-dive this past month. Yahoo’s stock is down more than 35% in the last 30 days, Google is down 16% and Ebay is down 34%. The Online Media sector is taking a beating for sure. Yahoo! is laying-off 1,500 people and eBay already laid-off 1,500. But how many of the companies doing lay-offs are financially strapped or in trouble? At this point, any company can announce a me-too lay-off without having to provide much explanation. Now, a lay-off will actually be perceived as an indication of good fiscal management! So for many companies this is a great opportunity to ‘cut the fat’ and get away with it. But look closely and you will see that while some companies are eliminating positions, they will be creating new ones elsewhere in the company. Out with the old and in with the new.
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 10/22/2008 3:24 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Advertiser Control Over Ad Spend and The Swinging Pendulum

My good friend, Jonathan Ewert says that every four years there is a great big pendulum that swings in our industry.  On the end of that ball is the influence factor over who controls the dollars in Online Media.


In the late 90s it was clearly the advertisers who had the control.  As they began to test the new medium and brought dollars to the internet in increasing amounts, advertisers tested all kinds of mechanisms that the publisher could come up with.  But it was the advertiser that dictated what measured performance, what the price they would ...
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 10/21/2008 2:28 PM | View Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
DoubleClick Launches Online Marketplace
As reported in iMediaConnection, “Buyers and sellers of online display advertising will have a new forum for making deals; at least that is the premise behind DoubleClick’s latest proprietary product, DoubleClick Advertising Exchange.” A mediated exchanged between buyers and sellers for the exchange of advertising inventory is not a new concept. Right Media is the best example of a well-executed version of this concept. In the past, I have proposed eliminating the middle-man of the exchange and putting buyer and seller together. But now DoubleClick is going to enter the exchange game. They have the publishers with DFP and they have the advertisers with DFA. This sounds a little bit like Google’s AdSense and Adwords. Watch this one closely as it could be game-changing.
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 4/11/2007 9:46 AM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Moving Beyond Event-Based Targeting
Today I published an article iMediaConnection, Moving Beyond Event-Based Targeting. The assignment was to 'go deep' with behavioral targeting, something that is uncommon on iMediaConnection. My blog borders on enraged reactions to the misnomer that network targeting is not really targeting deep behaviors at all. I went deep by introducing the concept that these capabilities are all very relevant but that they need to be tied together. I have another article that I am trying to get IMC to publish…
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 4/9/2007 10:10 AM | View Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
LookSmart Hires Ari Kaufman as Vice President of Publisher Services

LookSmart Hires Ari Kaufman as Vice President of Publisher Services, and Jonathan Ewert as East Coast Vice President of Advertising and Publisher Services

Critical Hires Complete the Company's Executive Sales Team

SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—LookSmart (NASDAQ: LOOK, ASX: LOK), an online advertising and technology company, is bringing two new Vice Presidents into its fold who are expected to help LookSmart grow and service its advertiser and publisher base. LookSmart has hired Ari Kaufman as Vice President of Publisher Services and Jonathan Ewert as the East Coast Vice President of Advertising and Publisher Services. They join ...
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 4/1/2007 4:35 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Create and Satisfy Demand: Two Tools to Complete the Marketing Loop Plus the Advertising Equation
Today Steve Mulder gave us “Create and Satisfy Demand: Two Tools to Complete the Marketing Loop,” an academic piece in iMediaConnection that well-defines the fundamentals between demographic segmentation and behavioral targeting or what he referred to as “goal targeting.” Steve talks about customer segmentation and Personas, the behaviors that you target or goals. This article focuses on web site content placement and reacting to your customers when to drive recurring revenue potential. If you are spending time creating customer segments and you are spending time creating goals for CMS targeting, why wouldn’t you leverage that knowledge to benefit from being able to recognize your customers when you advertise online as well? Let’s get into that …
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 3/30/2007 8:52 AM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Behavioral Targeting, What Ethics?
When Doug Wintz gave us an inspiring article on the Ethics of Behavioral Targeting he offered a glimpse into what behavioral targeting could be like in the offline future. Transfixing our imaginations into the likeness of the futuristic worlds painted by author Philip Dick, Wintz he helped us to question interactive advertising beyond the banner. But there is a big leap between the 728x90 banner and the beams of light that could be reading our retina in the shopping malls. Is it ethical to behaviorally target? Is the internet really free? Is it ethical to target consumer behaviors like catalogers do? Right now there is kickback on behavioral targeting, but that doesn’t stop publishers and networks from offering it or from advertisers from buying it. Where is the difference between what we have come to accept offline and what we protest online? If Behavioral targeting has the ability to present a user with advertisements that are relevant, is there still an ethical violation? Answering these questions and more defines the ethical debate…
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Posted by Ari Kaufman at 3/23/2007 7:12 AM | View Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
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