Ad-network storm in India

Ad-network storm in India

A swarm of ad-networks coming across verticals, accumulating inventory through various exchanges and potential tie-ups has warmed up this, rather innocent looking (a year ago that is) part of the Internet advertising industry. Earlier seen as an industry where buying across the Tier-I websites, Rediff, Yahoo!, MSN among others was the key to campaign performance, the situation has now changed drastically. However, it’s begun very recently with almost each interactive agency announcing their own ad-network coming in to the market. However, a very key component missing in many of them, which every ad-network needs to look forward to is technology, which is the key differentiator in this business. One needs to understand that the success of the best of ad-network companies, including Google has come through its excellent technology and self-serve models. It’s the back-end tech-team that determines the key competitive advantages that ad-networks might leverage in the market.

Current Indian Scenario

A detailed look into the market reveals the following ad-networks operational\getting launched in India-

1. Tyroo
2. Google Adsense
3. Tribal Fusion
4. Advertising.com
5. Axill
6. Integrid Media
7. Ozone Media
8. Komli
9. WebChutney
10. Interactive Avenues
11. Paypod
12. Contest2win
13. Adwale
14. DGM
15. Publicitas
16. NDTV Media
17. Ibibo
18. Ad-Chakra
19. Ishir Infotech

One definite conclusion to come out of this is the bright future of ad-networks in India, and this is what’s tempting all the Internet companies to launch an ad-network. The current market scenario is now moving towards where the US markets were a few years ago, with ad-networks coming up left, right and centre. Presently US has more than 200 ad-networks with very less, if any differentiation between them. This is where the role of technology becomes crucial, in providing top-ups over the current system, and building a competitive edge over others.




Where is this ad-network storm moving to?

In desperate efforts to build competitive advantage, ‘Verticalisation’ of ad-networks is happening in India, with category focused ad-networks coming in, aggregating inventory across genres. Another stream of ad-networks is the performance networks, working mostly on CPA models for Finance, Matrimony and Travel portals. And the last and the toughest to execute strategy is one of Horizontal networks, which build a huge network across all genres, trying to work on both Premium and Performance business models.
Inspite of all the competition and new developments happening, ad-network industry can be safely concluded to be still in the initial stage of PLC with ad-network spends on the lower band of the budgets, but the industry is definitely growing (Approximately 160%), and that too at more than double of what the internet advertising industry is growing at.