Online ad network AdBrite announced that it would begin selling ad units on a variety of Facebook applications.

The new sub-network of applications includes the popular iLike application, through which music fans express their tastes, and Fight Club, which lets Facebook users virtually square off. In total AdBrite says it can offer advertisers presence on over Facebook 100 applications, allowing brands an alternative means to access to the increasingly popular social networking platform.

AdBrite executives said that it would likely begin packaging ads on Facebook applications with similar inventory on the 70-plus other social networks it represents - including Bebo, LinkedIn, Hi5 and imeem – particularly for brands that are targeting younger consumers. In total, AdBrite’s network reaches 74 million unique users, per comScore Media Metrix.

Publishers: Tips and Tricks.

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* Never start your pricing too high. It is better to error on the low side and get advertisers hooked, because then they will be willing to pay higher prices for your inventory when the pricing increases.

* Make sure your placement is worth buying, the popular sellers in the marketplace tend to be sites with the most premium inventory.

* Spend some time tagging your site, and giving proper demographic information

* In your site description provide ideas of advertisers that you think might convert well. You know your audience best.

* AdBrite is more successful if you sell a FEW premium placements as oppposed to just MANY backfill placements.

* Hard code all placements because of the concreteness of “your ad here”. Putting AdBrite in rotation doesn’t perform as well.

* Allow a ramping period. AdBrite is a tool to help sell your own inventory, and think of it as a virtual salesperson for you. Any salesperson needs some time to gain traction. Just like an auction, the beginning price is never the final price.

* Entice advertisers with specials. You have full control to set pricing so make occasional specials to entice advertisers.

* Enable AdBrite’s auto pricing which will raise automatically as inventory sells, and lower itself as vacant inventory sits unsold.

Advertiser: Tips and Tricks.

* Always check the hottest sellers list on the home page to see what sites might be new, or relevant at the current time period

* Always check out the “ad specials” section in the advertiser dashboard, you will typically find some great deals.

* Think outside of the box, and think demographically. If you want college students where might they be?…if you want to reach women, what sites might they be on?

* Try multiple campaigns with different ad copy to see what might be converting

Online advertising firm AdBrite is set to announce on Tuesday a new program to serve ads for third-party Facebook applications. Considering it a niche “channel” alongside existing AdBrite verticals, the company has launched a new Web-based interface so that Facebook application developers can join the program and make their inventories “instantly available to AdBrite’s large base of advertisers.”

The company saw it as a logical move, AdBrite co-founder Philip Kaplan said in an interview with CNET News.com. “We’ve just had a lot of Facebook applications signing up to use AdBrite,” he said, stressing that AdBrite caters to a “long tail” demographic of many smaller advertisers and Web sites. It already powers the advertisements on Facebook Platform applications as hyped-up as iLike’s music applications and as, well, viral as the “Zombies” and “Pirates” apps.

Currently, widget-focused advertising firms are limited to companies like the start-up SocialMedia, but that’s about to change, considering the kind of buzz that social-network advertising, a nascent sector of the market, has been raking in. Facebook, after all, has rapidly impending plans to unveil a massive ad strategy. According to the terms of the newly announced deal with Microsoft, the Redmond, Wash.-based megalith holds the rights to all third-party ad sales on Facebook proper, but that leaves the developer application pages free for the taking–developers are responsible for their own advertising, and can keep all of the revenue. With its new Facebook app strategy, AdBrite is trying to exploit what it sees as a fairly open niche.

Some critics still say ads will never reach their full potential on social networks–we’ll just have to see how it all unfolds.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 29 /PRNewswire/ — As the Super Bowl shines its annual spotlight on the most high-profile buys and campaigns in television advertising, AdBrite, the Internet’s Ad Marketplace, has released figures that challenge traditional thinking about the unique value and impact of these spots.

AdBrite’s Full Page Ad format, one of the company’s signature innovations in online advertising, is now garnering average view times approaching 30 seconds per user session, with reach and engagement characteristics similar to full page ads in traditional media and the familiar 30-second TV spot. At the same time, the economics of AdBrite’s marketplace provide radically greater returns for advertisers: with AdBrite, an advertiser can purchase 79 million Full Page Ad impressions for roughly $300,000. Super Bowl advertisers pay up to $2 million to reach roughly 100 million viewers — more than six times more per impression — while reaching an audience that is only 25 percent larger.

“On Super Bowl Sunday, major brands will spend aggressively to engage what they perceive to be a uniquely large audience,” said Ignacio Fanlo, AdBrite’s CEO. “AdBrite’s Full Page Ad provides a similar opportunity for advertisers — a platform for memorable campaigning before a truly massive audience, with nearly 30 seconds of user engagement, plus full interactivity and tracking that TV spots simply can’t provide. And unlike the one-off Super Bowl telecast, AdBrite’s Full Page Ad delivers these results year-round for our interactive advertisers. With AdBrite, every day can be Super Bowl Sunday.”

AdBrite’s Full Page Ad allows advertisers to display engaging, interactive ad messages within consumers’ browsing experiences on high-quality websites. Advertisers simply upload a logo and a URL, and the result is a co-sponsored full page ad. Advertisers can easily utilize their existing website or landing page as the advertising content, allowing consumers to interact with their content just as they would if they had navigated there directly. A single click closes the ad and returns the visitor to the original session. Advertisers get exclusive visibility and full interactivity for maximum impact, as well as precise, real-time measurement and reporting on every site where the ads appear.

Major advertisers including Live Nation, Verizon, and GM have run successful Full Page Ad campaigns on the AdBrite network. In the four months since launch, over 500 million Full Page Ads have been viewed, with an average view time of 26 seconds.

More detail and an interactive demo are available on http://www.adbrite.com/fullpagead.

About AdBrite

AdBrite is the Internet’s Ad Marketplace. The company makes it easy to buy and sell advertising online, giving advertisers and publishers more transparency and control than any other ad network. With banner and text ads, as well as innovative formats like BritePic, InVideo and Full Page Ad, AdBrite has created a simple and more effective advertising marketplace for advertisers and publishers of all sizes. AdBrite serves ads on over one billion pages a day.

AdBrite was founded by Philip Kaplan and Gidon Wise in 2002 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. AdBrite is backed by venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, and Mitsui Ventures. For more information, visit http://www.adbrite.com/.

I received following notification from adbrite…

We’ve recently made a change to our system which allows users to see the URL for text ads running in your standard zone sizes. It will improve click-through rates by showing users exactly where they’ll go when they click on an ad. That in turn will drive more revenue for your site.

With the visible URL, you’ll also notice an “Ads by AdBrite” tag appended to each zone with text ads. This is part of our drive to make AdBrite-powered advertising as transparent as possible.

You don’t need to take any action. The systems change will take effect automatically and you should see it on your publisher zones soon.

AdBrite is committed to offering world class customer service and support. If you have any questions, check out our help page. Otherwise, get directly in touch with our support team here.

Thanks,
The AdBrite Team

Adbrite Says:

This month, one of our publisher specialists has a three-step plan to help website owners maximize their revenue yield. The tips are easy to implement, but they’ve proven their worth time after time.

Did you know that locating ads “above the fold” can make all the difference? Check the details on this tip and more on the AdBrite blog.

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