Nor Cal SEM

So, I met briefly with Adam, CEO over at adMarketplace.com today. I’m surprised to find out about them, but very interesting stuff and I wanted to share. So AMP started out early on, 2000 or so, using PPC to arbitrage on keywords for eBay sellers and affiliates. So well so, that they were picked up as the exclusive provider of PPC for eBay until 2003. (Steiner, 2006) Eventually they were dumped, but only to find themselves sitting atop a huge content network that they had created over the years. And like all good businessmen, they took that to market for the masses. They boast a titanic 300 million queries a day from their network! They actually provide a lions share of the traffic that you may currently be purchasing from the second-tier guys (Ask, Miva, Looksmart, Marchex, etc.).

“Our ads are currently displayed on Ask, Looksmart and Miva, along with several other shopping-specific inventory partners. We also have deals in place with Google and MSN and will be integrated with them by end of Q4,” Epstein said. “Still, its misleading to tell users that they can simply go to a site, type in a keyword and see their ad, because we are constantly optimizing our partners to make sure we are delivering the highest performing inventory to our advertisers at all times.” (Stenier, 2006)

Oh really?! So essentially I can buy direct now, cut out the middleman and his chunky UI, and get a dedicated account manager to optimize my campaigns and monitor click fraud for me?! For reals?! “Well, how’s your traffic?”, I say distrustingly, knowing that content networks can bring in some “shady” customers. “How about we put $1500 worth of $.05 traffic through your account on the house and go from there?”

You had me at hello…I’m sending my keywords over right now.

Stay tuned!

Steiner, Ina (2006) “adMarketplace Replaces eBay Keyword Program, Sellers Adjust” Retrieved June 5, 2008 from http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i03/s02