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An advertising network or ad network is a firm that connects web sites that want to host advertisements with advertisers who want to run advertisements. Increasingly ad networks are companies that pay software developers as well as web sites money for allowing their ads to be shown when people use their software or visit their sites. Increasingly behavioral or contextual networks are replacing the standard first generation ad networks, these new networks focus on specific targeting technologies. Behavioral targeted networks specialize in using consumer click stream data to enhance the value of the inventory they purchase. One of the most successful of these behavioral ad networks is AOL’s Tacoda.

The following is a listing of various types of ad networks:

Primarily Cost Per Thousand Views (CPM) Based Ad Networks

121Media 24/7 RealMedia Accelerator-Media Ad Solutions Network Ad World Network

AdAgency1 AdBonus AdDynamix / Pennyweb Networks AdOrigin AdPepper AdSmart

Adtegrity AdZuba Ampira Media Bannerconnect BannerSpace BlueLithium BURST! Media

Casale Media Claxon Media Click Agents CPX Interactive (Formerly Buds Media)

EuroClick Experclick FastClick/ValueClick Federated Media Gold Group

Gorilla Nation Media Hurricane Digital Media Impression|Up InterClick

Interevco (Interactive Revenue Company Ltd.) Joetec Mamma Media / FocusIn

MaxOnline Oridian Premium Network Quake Marketing Quin Street RealCastMedia

RealTechNetwork Revenue.net Right Media Rydium The Robert Sherman Company

TMP Tribal Fusion Valuead.com Yes Advertising HyperBidder

Primarily Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)/Cost Per Lead (CPL) Ad Networks

Advertising.com Amazon.com Axill Azoogle Ads ClickBank ClickBooth ClickXChange

Commission Junction / BeFree CoverClicks DarkBlue DrivePM emarketmakers

Linkshare Maxbounty Meta Reward ProfitCenter Revenue.Net ShareASale

Strategic Affiliates WebSponsors

Primarily Cost Per Click (CPC) AND/OR Text Based/Contextual Ad Networks

Google AdSense Yahoo! Publisher Network AdForce AdHearUs AdKnowledge

AdSonar Affiliate Sensor All Clicks AllFeeds BannerBoxes BClick BidClix

Bidvertiser CBprosense Clicksor ExpoActive IndustryBrains Mirago Miva

Nixxie One Monkey Oxado TargetPoint Textads Dot Biz TextWise Text Link Ads

Vibrant Media WebAdvertising.ca AdBright

Shopping/Comparison Networks

TTZ Media PriceGrabber Chitika Shopping.com CNet Shopper

“Non-Standard” Ad Networks (PopUps, Expandables, Pay Per Post, etc.)

7AdPower Opt-Media PayPopUp PointRoll PopUpTraffic Tremor Network

WhenU PayPerPost ReviewMe CreamAid

Specific Demographic Ad Networks

Absolute Agency AVN Ads BlogAds CrispAds Blog Advertising Network

HerAgency HispanoClick Pheedo RSS & Weblog Marketing Solutions

Qumana Adgenta Blog Ads WayPointCash

NON-US Primarily CPM Based Ad Networks

ClickHype DMO Global

Response Republic PeakClick

NON-US Primarily CPA/CPL Ad Networks

TradeDoubler Commission Monster Affiliate Future AdLink

This network listing is provided compliments of John Chow johnchow@johnchow.com

Marketers can sign up clients or partner with these various types of ad network to place their advertisements in search engines, websites and mobile devices to drive traffic to its client’s site for behavioral analytics. The ad network serves the advertisements from its servers, which responds to a site once a page is called. A snippet of code is called from the ad server that represents the advertisement on a network of websites, RSS feeds, blogs, instant messages, emails and other digital marketing sources and devices.

There are two levels of ad networks: first-tier and second-tier networks. First-tier networks have high volumes of quality traffic, and include most of the major search engines, while the second-tier networks have some of their own advertisers and publishers. These ad networks allow the creation and delivery to market segments that are customized to the topics required by ad campaigns of publishers, advertisers and mobile providers.

A new type of ad network is Fetchback.com who calls itself the retargeting company they use a patent-pending method to deliver targeted messages to visitors who’ve left a web site via an ad network. A one-line piece of FetchBack code is added to subscriber websites. Visitors receive an anonymous cookie containing no personal information whatsoever allowing the FetchBack networks to uniquely identify them anonymously, which is what behavioral analytics is about.

There are also targeted ad networks, which focus on contextual content along specific market sectors or consumer interests for the placement of their ads. There are over twenty-five contextual ad networks to choose from, some of which are very narrow in their scope. These industry-specific networks are also known as synthetic channels, each focusing on a single topic and are essentially virtual portals aimed at consumers with very specific values, needs and preferences. They have an advantage in brand-building by focusing on a single topic – they can aggregate a critical mass in traffic – for example there are several synthetic networks on fashion (glam.com), cars (Jumpstartautomotivemedia.com), athletics (ActiveAthleteMedia.com) and health (TheHealthCentralNetwork.com). In any event, whether targeted, first or second tier and now mobile – ad networks are another conduit marketers can leverage and execute as part of their overall behavioral analytics strategy for their clients.