"This new video advertising network represents a shift from stagnant pre-roll video advertising to advertising technology designed to leverage the Social Graph," a TwitVid representative tells WebProNews.

TwitVid says the network is designed to help advertisers increase sales by strengthening their social media presence through customized campaigns with specific audience targeting. Advertisers are offered "retweet-to-watch" and "follow-to-watch" functionalities for their videos. With the former, viewers are asked to retweet a message before hey watch the video, and with the latter, they will be prompted to follow an advertiser’s Twitter account before watching the video.

"Traditional means of monetizing video has heavily relied on pre-roll ads, which work great for premium content but can be quite suffocating for an end-user who may only be trying to watch a short video," says TwitVid co-founder Mo Al Adham. "SocialAds offers an alternative advertising solution, which provides measurable value to both advertisers and viewers. Through SocialAds’ proprietary technology media viewers are exposed to social media accounts targeted to be of high interest to them. In turn, advertisers are exposed to and gain engaged customers whom, once acquired, can be communicated with as a trusted brand."

TwitVid says that during a private beta test of the product, brands were getting over 400 new followers in less than an hour, with 2% of viewers following a brand. Prices for SocialAds are based on a price-per-action model. More info can be found here.

"This platform allows brands to target more than 100 million unique visitors a month via an array of methods such as videos, branded goods and offers, while game developers and publishers benefit from a broader set of monetization abilities," a representative for Offerpal tells WebProNews about the new display network. "The platform also allows for mobile advertising across social networks, games and virtual worlds."

The network features various IAB-standard ad units as well as rich-media opportunities to reach over 225 million users.

"The display ad network is a critical piece in allowing us to offer a one-stop-shop for social advertising and monetization, "says CEO George Garrick.

Offerpal views the addition of the network as a way for developers to monetize 100% of their traffic, between this, and the company’s current offers platform and alternative payment solutions.

Offerpal says the display network leverages its "advanced optimization engine" to maximize publisher revenue, in addition to compliance processes to ensure all ads meet policies put in place by social platforms.

Social media applications have proven to be big business, and as businesses look for more ways to monetize social networks like Facebook, networks like this are something to consider. For businesses selling merchandise, there are ways to monetize Facebook fans as well.

"Especially in light of the Dynamic Logic study that found that creative quality is 50 to 75 percent responsible for campaign success or failure, agencies must start evaluating the creative capabilities of networks," said Russ Fradin, president of Adify.

"As the industry looks for better ways to engage, not just reach, their audience, brands need to focus on compelling creative that builds an ongoing conversation with consumers and placing it where consumers spend time."

Other key findings from the survey include:

– More money is being allocated online each quarter:
   – 56 percent of respondents’ budgets were more than $500k in 2008.
     73 percent were over $500k in 2009.
   – In 2009, 37.9 percent of the respondents spend between $1-5 million
     per quarter on online advertising, 15.2 percent of respondents spend
     $5-20 million per quarter, and 5.9 percent spend more than $20 million
     per quarter on online advertising.

Branding is a major focus for online ad campaigns:
   – 83 percent of respondents allocate 50 percent or more of their budget
     to branding vs. direct response.

Awareness of vertical ad networks (VANs) continues to grow as a way to
   reach niche audiences:
   – 72 percent are familiar with VANs versus 56 percent in 2008.
 

Related Articles:

> Nielsen Shares Predictions for Advertising Trends in 2010

> Email Marketing Budgets Set For Increase In 2010

> Online Video Viewing Continues To Boom

Facebook has now disabled two more offer and ad networks, which the company says have repeatedly violated its policies. This has all been part of Facebook’s continued action against deceptive ads. The company has addressed its efforts in this area on the company’s developer blog.

"First, deceptive ads are a widespread issue on the Web and one we fight aggressively," says Facebook’s Nick Gianos. "This battle is not new and it’s far from over. We faced stimulus scam ads on our own system earlier this year and pushed them off the site with rigorous enforcement. We did the same months later when deceptive ads from third-party ad networks appeared in applications. We’re doing that again now as we see them appear in the form of offers."

"We recognize that monitoring ads isn’t the first area of focus for an entrepreneur just getting started with social applications," he says. "That’s why ad networks that don’t play by the rules should expect to be our first point of contact in our line of enforcement. Our policies are clear. If you’re an ad network and don’t comply with them, you are doing a disservice to your customers, and you should expect your business opportunities on Facebook to cease."

The company emphasizes that it is the responsibility not only of ad networks, but also of developers to make sure content running in third-party apps is appropriate.

Facebook’s policies on offers and "inappropriate" ad content can be viewed here. If there are questions, which there no doubt will be, they can be sent to Facebook via the Platform Advertising Contact form.

Related Articles:

> Facebook App Developers Face New Obstacles

> Facebook Puts Privacy Policy in Users’ Hands

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Chitika categorized the sites that get the most links from Twitter. Here’s how it shakes out by genre according to the ad network:

"Given Twitter’s unique ability to bring information instantly to large numbers of people, it’s not surprising that news leads the way," says Chitika. "From being the first to publish pictures of a Turkish Airlines plane crash to the social network’s breaking of US Airways Flight 1549′s dramatic crash into the Hudson River earlier this year, Twitter’s instantaneous and collaborative nature has made it out to be the bleeding edge of all news."

"Compare Twitter’s results, though, with older, more established social network Facebook, and the value and perception of Twitter’s speed become more obvious," the network adds. "While news sites do receive a good deal of Facebook’s referrals, they lag behind tech and lifestyle sites – tech sites dominate Facebook’s traffic with over 33% of the network’s referrals going there."

Here’s how Chitika’s numbers for Facebook traffic look:

On a semi-related note, a new real-time news discovery site called Thoora just launched. Thoora was a finalist of the TechCrunch50, and describes itself as a way to help people discover news attracting the most attention within social and traditional media by exploring the entire blogosphere, Twitter, and thousands of traditional media sources. Twitterers who are after the news may find such a service useful.

He also says that Facebook has not shut down apps without telling people. He says they’ve been reaching out to developers since July, and that this is not a new occurrence. It has been going on since the policies went into effect.

Original Article: Back in July, Facebook made some changes to its advertising policies. With the new policies, Facebook holds third-party developers accountable for any ads that run with their apps. Now some developers are finding that their apps are being shut down without warning.

Obviously, when you are a developer trying to run a business with Facebook apps, and your model depends on ads, you may find you have some problems when not only does Facebook find some of the ads that run with your app objectionable, but they shut down your app entirely without telling you.

There are "hundreds of millions of dollars currently at stake and Facebook is the one pulling the strings," says Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook, who has spoken with a number of developers who have experienced this problem.

Facebook says they will enforce their policies with any developers and apps with offending ads, and will impose a temporary restriction on functionality or permanently disable the app. "These poor ads — even from a small number of applications — can diminish user confidence in all advertising, adversely impacting the entire Platform ecosystem," said Paul C. Jeffries of Facebook’s Platform Policy Team in a forum post.

Developers do not always have control over the ads that appear with their apps. Sometimes, they come from third-party ad networks. Facebook knows this and tells developers to monitor the ads and work with providers to "ensure compliance and high quality."

"Don’t run ads from networks you don’t trust or you catch violating the guidelines," says Jeffries. "You may wish to ask your network to explain how they protect you and users, whether they have a process for receiving ad complaints, whether they offer you transparency into the variety of ads they run in different locations, and whatever other assurances you as a publisher would like to demand in exchange for allowing access to space you are accountable for."

Recently one Facebook app was shut down (at least temporarily) for another reason altogether. It looks like apps that allow for content threatening the President of the United States may also violate Facebook’s policies, not to mention the Secret Service.

Google says it has three principles for its approach to display advertising:

1. Simplify the system for buying and selling display ads: For example, our DoubleClick ad serving products help advertisers and publishers manage campaigns and ad formats across thousands of websites and from thousands of advertisers.

2. Deliver better performance that advertisers and agencies can measure: We’re building a host of new features to help advertisers to run display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network (comprising hundreds of thousands of AdSense partner sites) and on YouTube. We’re also developing better measurement and reporting technology so they can figure out what’s working and what’s not.

3. Open up the ecosystem: We want to democratize access to display advertising and make it accessible and open, like search advertising. We recently launched the Display Ad Builder to help businesses easily set up and run display ad campaigns. 80% of advertisers who use that product have never run a display ad campaign before.

AdWords advertisers can run ads with the same AdWords interface through the exchange. Ad Exchange sites are considered part of the Google Content Network. Ad Exchange placements will appear like any other Conent Network Placement in AdWords reports. Users can still use the Placement Performance Report to see where their ads have run, and which ones performed best. Google does note, however, that Ad Exchange sites can choose to remain anonymous, and in cases like that, the site will appear in your reports with an anonymized label like "123456.anonymous.google." You have the power to exclude these placements though.
 

Google says AdSense publishers will also benefit from more advertisers coming through the exchange. The company recently announced plans to give AdSense publishers a new way to generate revenue by allowing multiple Google-certified ad networks to compete for display ad space on their sites. This is related to the Ad Exchange announcement. The Google-certified ad network capability is powered by the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

"Certified ad networks are Ad Exchange participants who have gone through an additional certification process in order to be able to bid for your ad space through AdSense," Google says. "We call this feature ‘yield management’, because it offers you the most revenue for each ad that shows on your site in real time, regardless of whether it’s Google or another certified party who can offer you the highest bid."

Publishers using the Ad Exchange can use real-time data and bids to allocate ad space that pays the most at any particular second. They get access to more advertisers, Google manages billing and payments from networks, so publishers get one monthly payment.

Ad networks and agencies get access to more publishers, more ad space, real-time bidding, and a new API, which lets them integrate their own functionality and systems when using the Ad Exchange.

Google’s move is largely seen as its way of cutting into Yahoo’s share of the display advertising pie. This is one area where Yahoo has been quite successful, as Google has dominated the text ad market.

What do you think of this idea? Comment here. Google explains the concept in the following video:

"You may remember that we began to accept display ads served from qualified third-party vendors over a year ago, which helped increase the number of display ads competing on AdSense publisher sites," says Google Business Product Manager Sean Harvey. "With this new change, participating ad networks can also bid in our auction to appear on AdSense sites. This new capability will help you generate the most profit for every ad that appears on your site, whether the ads come from AdWords advertisers or Google-certified ad networks."

The networks themselves are ad agencies and companies that partner with advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ads on sites they don’t own. AdSense publishers will now be able to allow advertisers from these networks to compete directly with AdWords advertisers for their ad space. The ad networks:

- Connect advertisers with publishers

- Provide access to additional inventory not currently available with AdWords

- Adhere to Google’s standards for user privacy, ad quality and speed

Reporting and payments will still run through AdSense as always, and available ad formats will remain the same as they have been for AdWords. Publishers will still have control over which networks can show ads on their pages, and they can choose to opt out of receiving ads from specific networks, or all networks.

Right now, the feature is only available to publishers in North America and Europe, but Google plans to rolling out to more places in the future.

What do you think about Google increasing competition by allowing ad networks in AdWords? Share your thoughts.

89% intend to work with ad networks in 2009 according to the study. This is an increase of 5% from 2008. Over half of respondents expect to spend up to 15% of their online budgets with ad networks. About another fourth of respondents indicated that their ad network spend will represent up to 30% of online budgets.

"Targeting emerged as the primary area of interest in this year’s findings, relative to how advertisers and agencies are leveraging ad networks," says Collective Media CEO Joe Apprendi. "Over 60 percent confirmed using demographic, behavioral and contextual targeting. And we saw strong growth over 2008 in those using both site and search retargeting. These findings support the shift Collective Media is seeing among advertisers and agencies toward buying audiences rather than just sites. Based on these survey responses, we expect this trend to continue across 2009."

Some other interesting findings that Apprendi highlights include:

- Short List of Ad Network Partners: Most agencies and advertisers appear to have established a limited number of trusted ad network partners. Over 70% of respondents surveyed work with only one or two ad networks on an average media plan.

- Differentiation in a Crowded Field: 71% of respondents noted that there are now too many ad networks, up from 62% in 2008. When asked about what best differentiates one from another, the top two responses were inventory quality and targeting, followed by site transparency and level of service. These answers dovetail with respondents who cited transparency, quality and control as top reasons why they remain concerned about working with some ad networks.

- Ad Exchanges Won’t Replace Ad Networks: Although 4.5% more agencies and advertisers said they worked with ad exchanges than those surveyed in the prior year, these respondents remain in the minority. Most respondents (85%) did not work with exchanges, and only 7% believe exchanges will replace ad networks.

- Targeting and Efficiency Matter Most: Efficiency continues to be the number one reason why agencies and advertisers use ad networks (72%), but not at the expense of ad environment and quality. This is demonstrated with 23% of respondents citing inventory quality as the largest differentiator between ad networks, with targeting a close second with 19%.

- Continuing Growth in Brand Advertising: More than 50% of respondents continue to work with ad networks for both their branding and direct marketing plans. At the same time, there was a statistically significant decrease between 2007 to 2009 in the percentage of those using ad networks for only direct marketing plans – which correlates to an increase of marketers using networks strictly for branding purposes.

- Warming to User-Generated Content: User-generated video is still most-cited by respondents when asked on which types of content they will not run online advertising – with 63% of respondents citing ‘Blogs’ and 24% citing ‘Social Media’ overall. However, social media and user-generated content is garnering greater acceptance across the board with all categories improving year-over-year.

"The ability to effectively target audiences, the quality of inventory offered, and the level of transparency and service provided are all critical drivers in the success of an ad network program," says Brian Mandelbaum, VP, group media director, interactive, Cramer-Krasselt. "While there are hundreds of ad networks in the market today, the trusted partners are those that maintain appropriate focus on the areas that really count."

Nearly 500 online media decision makers were surveyed. It was fielded by Sterling Research Group between February and March.

The IAB’s goal is to create support against proposed legislation in New York and Connecticut that would prohibit the collection of data about online consumers without a user’s specific permission. The Federal Trade Commission is developing behavioral marketing guidelines that would allow online advertisers to monitor themselves.

The IAB maintains the proposed regulations would have a disproportionately negative impact on small online publishers whose advertising sales rely largely on ad networks.

The IAB is offering small publishers a special introductory rate of $500 a year. The membership is open to any publisher that generates revenues of under $1 million per year from online advertising.  Membership for larger publishers is around $10,000. 

Privacy advocates argue that existing laws don’t do enough to protect consumer’s rights.

"Campaigns have been launched at both the Federal and state levels to seek government regulation of many of the core processes and technologies that support interactive advertising, and the potential impact on small publishers can’t be underestimated," said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB.