JohnDeMayo.com: Internet Advertising Insight

LeadsCon in Vegas Feb 23-24

     I will be attending LeadsCon in Las Vegas Feb 23-24, and will be staying in Vegas for a few days afterward.  If you are interested in setting up some time to chat with me, please drop me a line, my schedule is pretty clear right now.  I'm really looking forward to this one, a few of my old friends and co-workers I haven't seen in a while will be in attendance.

Quinstreet Valuation

~$800 million.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_mQ2s5tiC_c&pos=6

My estimate in November was $1 billion, not too far off.

My first patent granted

Back in 2000-2002 I authored / co-authored a number of patent applications, as an employee of Advertising.com.  It looks like one was finally granted.  United States Patent 7,617,121 - Apparatus and method for hyperlinking specific words in content to turn the words into advertisements.  I actually wrote the original javascript files to handle re-writing a html page to include the desired ads.....pretty funny as I don't consider myself to be technical, no programming background, I just learned what I needed to on the fly when I didn't have the required resources.

AOL to restrict Advertising.com's ability to sell premium ads

     Apparently AOL is going to start restricting Advertising.com's ability to sell its premium inventory.  It will be very interesting to see exactly what that will mean.  I don't think it will mean certain placements will never see clients booked by adcom reps, but more likely that they will not be able to guarantee delivery on certain placements (but they may still show up in the mix).  So likely they can't sell guaranteed delivery on a particular placement, but they can sell a performance campaign which ends up on that placement (just not declared beforehand).

     Given the large number of variables there are in advertising purchase orders, I'm curious to see the exact definition of what Advertising.com reps can and can not contract for....and what the loopholes are that the crafty reps and their analysts will find.

Shouk Media: Congrats to Jay Weintraub and Dave Wengal

     I just read that Dave Wengal has left Targus Info to join my old friend Jay Weintraub, helping connect and educate people in the industry, with their newly formed company Shouk Media.  Congrats to both of you.  Jay's spoken a bit to me about his vision for continuing to work on helping people learn about our industry, and connect appropriate people together for mutually benefitial relationships across a number of mediums (including and expanding on his work in conferences, and his writing on various blogs).  I couldn't be more excited on his continued execution on this vision, and his bringing in a partner with a fantastic reputation.  Let me know how I can help Mr. Jay :)

Modeling Admob and Millennial Media revenues and margin

    I read Cogblog's stab at modeling some of the mobile network's revenues, margin,overhead this morning.  Making a few modifications to their assumptions get us closer to reality.

    First, they assume revenues at $.50/CPM and publisher payouts of $.30/CPM for non-premium inventory.  In my experience the clearing rate for inventory is closer to $$1.00-1.25/CPM, as opposed to $.50/CPM.

    They also assume margins are 40% in the business, and that both companies have the same margins.  I suspect margins are slightly lower overall.  I also believe that Admob's margins are greater, because they have a larger number of smaller publishers.  Millennial Media's margins are likely lower as they represent a smaller number of bigger publishers that have more negotiating leverage.

    My numbers assume US traffic, so there could be a lot of play in these numbers based upon how well non-US countries monetize.  Also, these are clearing rates for "non-premium" inventory....I don't have any good guesses on the amount of inventory sold at premium rates (although the premium sell-through rate is likely much higher at Millennial).