Los Angeles — The ex-Google execs running AOL are looking to make display advertising a little more Google-like, and following the tag-line — AOL has introduced the beta version of the Advertising.com “Ad Desk,” a new campaign management platform aimed at small and mid-sized agencies and advertisers.
The Web services company formulated the platform after soliciting feedback from brand and direct response advertising agencies and marketers in recent months.
The Ad Desk service would empower display advertisers to take a more active role in their online ad campaigns. They will be able to access information (such as demographics and audience size) on AOL’s various properties, and make decisions on how and when campaigns should run — without having to go through AOL’s sales force.
“Transparency and control are the main attributes of online advertising,” said Jeff Levick, EVP, AOL Advertising. “Providing clients with a greater level of personalized control over digital marketing campaigns is paramount as organizations continue to look for innovative ways to promote their brands and evaluate their ROI when planning campaigns.”
AOL is targeting small and mid-size businesses with the beta release.
The tool will empower marketers to theoretically buy and run campaigns on AOL and Ad.com without ever talking to an AOL ad exec. It will also allow more refined marketers to optimize their campaigns on the fly and on their own terms with access to the same analytics tools and insights that the biggest Ad.com advertisers already have.
“We see this as a big under-served mid-market of agencies and advertisers that have not been given because, of our limitations, access to our inventory,” said Levick.
Chris Hansen, VP of performance marketing at 360i, a digital marketing shop that collaborates with AOL on the platform, said that his firm can use the service to target consumers across demographic data, specific AOL publications or the Advertising.com network.
“You can buy across demographic data that [AOL has] collected,” he said, adding that media buying agencies are demanding increasingly complex analytics from Web publishers.
The self-serve tool will be made available to all advertisers big and small, but open to advertisers disbursing as little as $300 over three days, or $3,000 over 30 days. These advertisers have not been able to buy at scale on AOL or Ad.com in the past, and AOL sales execs are typically focused on accounts bigger than $25,000 a month.
However, AOL is treading on a thin line with Ad Desk. The new adminstration has worked to distance itself from the Randy Falco and Ron Grant era, which emphasized Advertising.com over AOL’s own properties, leading to CPM declines.
Now led by CEO Tim Armstrong and Levick, AOL has expected to sell the company as a content powerhouse worthy of premium pricing — not a company driven by commodity inventory.
Levick stressed that Ad Desk was still in beta. “We are operating directly with larger agencies and advertisers now to define the future updates of this tool to ensure it meets their needs and requirements as well,” he said.