A Huge Milestone For Any Silicon Valley Startup — Getting Some Sweet Swag

For any startup that ends up in this magical, yet sometimes odd place that we like to call Silicon Valley, there are some milestones that have somehow seemed to become standard fare. I’m not exactly sure where each of these milestones have specifically come from, but somehow, someway they have worked their way into a sort of implied checklist that new startups (like us) knock off one at a time as they begin to grow like crazy (which we are).

What made me think of these milestones was the fact that we just got in our first order of sweet swag — our t-shirts, which is always a HUGE moment for any startup. Yeah, I know, you’re probably thinking, they’re just t-shirts, right? Well, they are just t-shirts, but they’re also one of the first steps to ‘officially’ becoming part of the silicon valley startup scene.

09123isockettshirts

If you’re not following me, let me give you a few examples of what I’m talking about. Here are some of the more common milestones that startups experience and more specifically how they relate to all of us here at isocket:

Some Common Silicon Valley Startup Milestones

So, what’s next? you ask. Great question — the next really big milestone is to hire an amazing engineering team so that we can scale out isocket to what we envision it to be and if you happen to be (or know) an awesomely talented engineer who wants to become part of the journey, be sure to check out our jobs page asap.

December 4, 2009 | Filed Under The Startup Journey

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Please Join isocket in Welcoming The Newest Member Of Our Team — Me! (Ryan Hupfer)

bloggersheadshotYou know, there really isn’t anything in the world quite like diving head-first into a newly-funded, industry-changing, well-respected startup in Silicon Valley. There just isn’t. I’ve tried to think of another situation that’s somewhat similar in awesomeness and honestly, it was hard for me to find. This is why I’m practically smiling ear-to-ear while I’m writing this because I’ve been one of the few who get to enjoy the guaranteed wild ride of becoming part of isocket at the very beginning of it’s growth. To all of the soon-to-be isocket customers, I’m going to be the guy that you’ll get to know really well as I’ll be helping you get the most out of your isocket experience. If you have questions, I’ll be there to help. If you have an idea that can potentially make our product better, I’ll help it find the light of day. If you are simply wanting to learn about all that isocket has to offer, I’ll tell you anything you need to know (and more). Joining a startup at this stage isn’t for the faint of heart (i.e. it’s not always going to be butterflies and pixie stix), but man, for someone such as myself, it sure is a lot of fun.

Speaking of myself, I guess that I should you tell you all a little bit about who I am.

Well, my name is Ryan Hupfer and I’m now the third official member of the isocket team. So new, in fact, that I’m not even on our about us page (we’ll get to that here soon). I’m super-excited to be part of what I think is going to change that way that we currently think about all types of advertising. We have a few things to do before we can really start making some serious waves, but as you’ve hopefully already seen with what we’ve been able to do with TechCrunch, we really think that we’re on to something here and if you don’t already, we think you’ll feel the same way, too.

Seeing as how I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, I’m going to attempt to streamline the rest of my introductory process by creating an easy-to-digest, bulleted list of some Ryan Hupfer fun facts. If you have any other more specific questions that you would like to ask me, please feel free to leave them in the comments below and I’ll get back to you asap.

**Ryan Hupfer Fun Facts**

Below you can see Me, Frank and some of our new (and apparently tasty) isocket swag.

Well, that’s just about all I have to say for now, but remember to please say hello in the comments and if you ever want to stop by the offices, I’d be happy to take you over to see the world’s largest Pez dispenser (see below). If that doesn’t make you want to visit, I really don’t know what will.

pez

November 30, 2009 | Filed Under isocket team awesomeness

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What Happened to the Ad Network Apocalypse?

Usually when we find something worth sharing on the web, we send out a quick note on our twitter account @isocket. Past cool examples: Marketing Your Ad Space: How to Create Your Own Direct Advertising Sales Package (hey, we offer that!), Can Ad Networks and Premium Inventory Co-Exist?, and Google to Target Users by FICO Score.

I’ve been meaning to share this “Apocalypse” blog post with you for the last month. This past year has caused a lot of turmoil and self-analysis in the advertising and ad technology industries. But this is a good thing – we love the idea of creative destruction, and this year is no different!

Warren Lee wrote a blog post for AdAge called “What Happened to the Ad Network Apocalypse?“. Since the downturn, many predicted the mass consolidation / destruction of the 400 – 500 or so ad networks. A kind of “survival of the fittest”. But for the most part that hasn’t happened.

Many of the less differentiated, standard graphical networks have not shut down, because they are easy to run with very little expense these days. Most of the lesser-known ones (and even some of the bigger players) are essentially glorified brokers that acquire their inventory on the exchanges. They hire a trafficker, a salesperson or two, sign a 5-cent-CPM contract with an ad server and find someone who knows how to bid the exchanges to stay in business. They don’t need to invest significant resources in acquiring high-quality inventory or professionally managing relationships with publishers. These networks can generate a profit, enough to survive and to eke out a decent living.

Warren believes one of the reason they’ve survived is:

Most online publishers still find it difficult and lack the expertise to find, qualify, hire and manage ad-sales executives, which is a reason why many smaller and midsize online publishers turn to ad networks to help handle this activity.

We’re obviously biased, but we agree with him. Many of the ad networks are still around not necessarily because they should be, but because advertisers and publishers don’t see many alternatives.

There was an interesting comment left on Warren’s post by tddaly:

The main reason that Ad Networks are still succeeding is that Agencies haven’t replaced their services with their own in-house network exchanges yet. 2010 and 2011 will be tough upcoming years as Agencies pull their spend back and run it through their own systems. As Agencies shift spend, ad networks will feel the pain.

Very good point. Ad networks and exchanges were popular the last 5 years – but are they the future? Or is a small but fundamental change going to happen?

During the last post-bubble-wastelands (i.e. 2001-2003), the same thing happened. Web 1.0 advertising money dried up. It was during this time that people got creative and there was a crop of new companies and products – things like Google AdWords and Right Media. Many of the ad networks and exchanges that have become dominant today (or were acquired in ‘07-’08) were built during 2001-2003.

You can see in this chart that the upward momentum in the late 90’s fell flat. When this forced the industry to create and innovate, look what happened: (UPDATED with new Q209 numbers)

2009-q2-ad-market-graph

Full report from the IAB available here (PDF).

Here’s the point: don’t assume adding new bells and whistles to existing ad networks will be the “future of advertising”. What if something fundamentally changes – something like the blog comment by tddaly? What if advertisers want bring all their functions in house? What if people want to stop paying commissions?

Whatever happens, we’re very excited to see the innovative growth that takes place over the next 5 years!

October 1, 2009 | Filed Under Advertising

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Join The isocket Team – We Are Hiring!

Fresh off the heels of our funding announcement, we’ve just posted a new jobs page and some descriptions of what we’re looking for. We look forward to meeting and getting to know as many of you as we can!

Who We Need

Many startups pay lip service to the importance of the team and who they hire. We couldn’t take it more seriously. We believe there are exceptional people out there – maybe they’re already exceptional, maybe they haven’t had the chance yet – and we want them.

Many startup job postings talk about “Ninjas, Rockstars and Jedis”. We don’t want to use gimmicky words, we just want to work with the best people we can. It’s rewarding for everyone involved, and it’s the best way to build the best company.

We’ve tried to frame our job descriptions around “what the right candidate will be like” rather than the traditional “here’s a list of 20 tasks you will do every day”.

Because of this strategy and our size and stage, the actual job titles and descriptions are flexible. In general, we need people to build / execute our product and people to care about / work with our customers. If you or someone you know could be a great fit, but aren’t sure if you fit a specific posting, say hello anyway!

Open Positions

What about Junior-level positions and internships? If you think you’re a fit and up to the challenge, email us ( join at isocket dot com) and tell us why.

Why You Should Join

In our job postings, we talk a lot about what we bring to the table. Bottom line: this is a unique opportunity for the right people. There are very few places in the world other than Silicon Valley where you can enjoy the startup lifestyle and all it can reward you with.

August 27, 2009 | Filed Under Announcements, Company

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isocket Raises $2M In Funding From Top Investors

We’re excited to announce that isocket has closed a $2 million round of seed funding!

We’ve been quiet recently. The isocket team has been very busy since the launch of our private Beta with TechCrunch earlier this summer. In addition to working with new customers and working as fast as we can on product development, Zak and I have been looking for ways to grow the company so we can scale.

We know many of you are itching to try out the service – now we can ramp things up and get the product into more peoples hands, faster.

The A-Team

We are honored by the investors who have lost their minds believe in what we’re working on. These people are awesome:

Please join me in welcoming them to the project. We are excited that such a great group of people believe in isocket and will be contributing to our growth. We look forward to working with them!

The Starting Line

Raising capital is one of the hardest and biggest hurdles for startup founders. As a result, many entrepreneurs make funding the goal – in other words, it becomes the finish line.

But for Zak, myself, and all the new team members who will be joining us – this is the starting line. We now have the resources we need to start growing isocket into what we know it can be.

We’re Hiring!

isocket is hiring. We just announced a bunch of open positions at our (future) office in San Mateo, CA. Engineers, designers, sales – you name it, we probably need it.

Are you or someone you know incredibly talented and passionate? Want to join one of the few newly funded companies in the Valley? Say hello.

August 27, 2009 | Filed Under Announcements, Company

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Should I Try Direct Ad Sales On My Website?

This is part 4 of a 4 post series about direct sales and web display ads. Many website owners are benefiting from or considering selling ads on their sites directly. But direct sales can be confusing and it isn’t right for everyone. The posts:

  1. The Two Types of Web Display Ads: Premium vs Remnant
  2. Why Direct Sales Is A Great Way To Sell Ads
  3. How isocket Powers Premium Ad Sales
  4. Should I Try Direct Ad Sales On My Website?

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It’s Not For Everyone

Selling premium ads is not the best idea for every site on the web. Whether you want to conduct outbound direct sales or inbound self service, there are some basic factors that will impact how successful you are and if you should even make the investment to try.

So that I feel better about spending all that time and money on getting a Business Economics degree, allow me to present a very complex technical graph:

inverse-relationship-size-vs-risk

However, there are no hard rules – it’s more art than science and it’s a sliding scale. If you’re already conducting direct sales, either by hand or with a service similar to isocket, then it’s a no brainer. If you want to start selling premium ads here’s some criteria to consider:

  1. You can invest the time and effort to make direct sales work.
  2. You’ve had people email you saying “I’d love to buy an ad on your site!”
  3. You have ideas for new / valuable advertising options.
  4. You have the level of traffic and audience an advertiser would want to buy.

Can You Make The Investment?

Although isocket makes it a lot easier than it used to be, selling premium advertising on your website, whether it’s outbound direct sales or inbound self-service, is an investment of your time and energy. Even if you plan on using the self-service model exclusively, which is a “set it and forget it” type service for the publisher, it still takes more time and attention than using AdSense.

It takes time to get everything set up. You have to set up your ad zones, implement our ad tags on your website or in your ad server, create your inventory packages, fill out your profile, etc.

Then, once you start selling ads, you have to approve each order before it goes live on your site, answer any questions or bids you’ve received from potential buyers, update your traffic numbers, keep your content fresh, etc.

Most importantly, you need to actively promote and sell your inventory. After all, it’s called direct sales for a reason – you are selling your “product”, which involves making people aware it exists, making it easy for them to find (perhaps via an advertising page on your website), and contacting potential advertisers.

But You Still Need The Traffic

Think about it: if you run a blog that is read by 14 random people and your mother, would an advertiser make the effort to buy an ad directly? Your best option in that case is an ad network.

There is no hard limit on minimum traffic, and isocket doesn’t have a magic number we use to screen potential customers. However, we do believe that a rough rule of thumb is to have at least 50,000 page views per month.

We have run across publishers with less traffic than this that are successful with direct sales, but they usually offer something else that is valuable, such as a highly targeted audience. Or it could be a unique situation where you only get 10,000 unique visitors per month but they are a very engaged audience that generates 200,000 ad impressions, etc.

Does Size Really Matter?

When it comes to premium ad sales, yes. From an advertising buyer’s perspective, it has to be worth it for them to put the time and money into making a direct purchase. We discussed some of these reasons in the second post of this series.

Let me put it another way: you wouldn’t drive an hour to buy a McDonald’s hamburger that was $1 off. It may be a mighty tasty and efficiently priced burger, but the effort didn’t warrant the reward.

This is why premium advertising has been a privilege of the larger websites. If an advertiser is going to be making calls and sending checks anyway, they may as well buy from the biggest sites they can. In other words, an advertiser would rather make 5 phone calls to 5 websites to purchase ads that will reach 5 million people, as opposed to making 500 calls to 500 websites that will reach 5 million people.

traffic-curve-audienceThe graph above represents the audience size of websites, ranging from the #1 site on the web to the last. The shaded blue areas show that the total audience size of the top 50 websites might be the same audience size as the last 500,000 websites combined. It’s a bell curve, and it’s the graph that spawned terms like “the long tail.”

The Floor Is Dropping

An important trend is emerging. The “minimum size” of a website that can successfully sell premium ad space is dropping. In other words, if a couple of years ago you needed to have at least 1 million page views to successfully sell a premium ad, today you might only need 100,000.

more-sites-are-qualifying

This change is happening for a couple reasons. First, the dramatic rise of small and middle sized ad buyers spending their ad dollars online has increased the demand for “middle class” advertising (as opposed to big budget advertising, like on CNN.com). The other reason is that tools like isocket are making it easier for more groups to try direct sales without the huge development or staffing costs.

Try Us Risk Free – Plug In Your Existing Ad Network

If you think you meet the criteria outlined in this post and still want to try premium ad sales, great! We wanted to help people try direct sales without risking the money they are already making. One of isocket’s features is the ability to daisy chain our service with your existing ad networks. If you’re already using a network like AdSense, you can put their ad code into isocket, so that while your premium ad is waiting to be purchased we will display your AdSense code.

You can read more about how isocket powers premium advertising in the third post of this series and sign up for a beta invitation on our homepage.

May 20, 2009 | Filed Under Advertising, Beta, Features

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TechCrunch Picks isocket For Direct Ad Sales

TechCrunch LogoWe are very excited to announce and welcome TechCrunch as the newest addition to our private Beta! Just in case you are new to the internet, TechCrunch is one of the largest, most influential blogs in the tech and start-up world and is read by over 2 million people per day.

We are honored that TechCrunch would choose isocket to power their ad sales. They see a lot of technology companies and had their pick of the litter, so their faith in us was humbling and motivating. You can read their announcement about isocket here.

If you’d like to be a part of our private Beta as well, you should sign up for the waiting list on our homepage! We’ll be sending out invites on a first-come, first-serve basis in the coming weeks and months.

You should definitely take a look at TechCrunch’s ad sales pages. Here is the direct sales page on their website and here is their isocket profile / Media Kit page. They are also offering a 20% launch discount on all their ads! If you make your purchase during the month of May, you can apply this discount to any campaign through the end of 2009!

One of the coolest things that the TechCrunch team wanted to accomplish by moving their ad sales onto isocket was to make it easier for more advertisers, especially start-ups, to have the chance to advertise on TC.

Since isocket makes it easier to buy and sell advertising, TC is able to offer more options, including new ad packages that run for a day. For example, you can promote the launch of your startup or product by purchasing all of the premium ads on TechCrunch’s main page for one day, and all it takes is a few clicks on isocket (you can watch a video sneak peak here)!

We’d like to thank TC head hacker Henry Work for sourcing and championing us, Heather Harde for giving us the chance, and Michael Arrington for supporting startups both on and within TechCrunch. Laguna is pretty awesome too. They work hard over there but have a great time doing it.

May 8, 2009 | Filed Under Announcements, Beta, Community

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How isocket Powers Premium Ad Sales

This is part 3 of a 4 post series about direct sales and web display ads. Many website owners are benefiting from or considering selling ads on their sites directly. But direct sales can be confusing and it isn’t right for everyone. The posts:

  1. The Two Types of Web Display Ads: Premium vs Remnant
  2. Why Direct Sales Is A Great Way To Sell Ads
  3. How isocket Powers Premium Ad Sales
  4. Should I Try Direct Ad Sales On My Website?

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Selling Your Own Ads Is Tough

So selling your own premium advertising can be a great thing. But going at it alone can be very difficult – conducting direct sales as a publisher is a time consuming mess. It’s very manual – emails back and forth, invoices, etc.

desktop_clutter_cluttered_desk_paper_stack_messOn average, publishers who are trying direct sales spend up to half their time on the administrative overhead behind ad sales, or the “nuts and bolts”. One of our beta testers described his daily routine as “hand to hand combat.”

We’re one of the new tools that makes the processes easier and quicker. Plus we’re the only one that is commission free and built for flexibility and customization.

Outbound Direct Sales vs Inbound Self Service

There are two ways premium ads get bought and sold. One is outbound direct sales, where the seller is actively trying to push his inventory by pitching to potential buyers “you should buy ads on my website!” The other is inbound self service, where a buyer initiates the purchase by coming to the seller and saying “I’d like to advertise on your site!”

Let’s take a look at a typical inbound scenario:

  1. Buyer is browsing a website and is interested in advertising on it.
  2. Buyer goes to the “advertise page”, such as xyz.com/advertise.
  3. The advertise page tells the buyer that they need to email advertise@xyz.com for more info.
  4. There’s a back and forth of emails where the buyer is asking questions, trying to figure out what is available to buy, the price, etc.
  5. Buyer and seller agree on a deal. Seller creates an invoice for the buyer and emails it to them. Buyer sends payment via check, PayPal, etc.
  6. Buyer emails their banner ad to seller. Seller takes the file and puts it into their ad server, manually creating a campaign based on what the buyer wanted.
  7. The ad runs. The buyer can’t see what’s happening or change their banner image, so they email the seller to see how much of their order has been filled.
  8. The seller emails a report to the buyer once the campaign is done.

That doesn’t sound like much fun. It’s a very tedious, time consuming, manual processes simply to sell a banner ad. Lots of independent moving pieces and things that have to be kept track of. Think about it – an ad buyer has to jump through hoops to give you money that they wanted to spend on you!

isocket Makes It Easier

Rather than tell you what we’re doing, we thought it’d be better to show you! Here’s the first public look inside isocket (a 4:45 video screencast).

Here’s some of the key features highlighted in the screencast:

What Do You Think?

Our goal is to build you the best ad platform around! The best way to do that is by listening to you. Tell us what you think of the sneak peak into isocket or what features you would love to see! You can also connect with us on twitter.

May 4, 2009 | Filed Under Advertising, Beta, Features

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Why Direct Sales Is A Great Way To Sell Ads

This is part 2 of a 4 post series about direct sales and web display ads. Many website owners are benefiting from or considering selling ads on their sites directly. But direct sales can be confusing and it isn’t right for everyone. The posts:

  1. The Two Types of Web Display Ads: Premium vs Remnant
  2. Why Direct Sales Is A Great Way To Sell Ads
  3. How isocket Powers Premium Ad Sales
  4. Should I Try Direct Ad Sales On My Website?

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Have you ever seen a website with an “advertise here” page, typically something like photojojo.com/advertising/? Are you unhappy with your ad networks and think you could be making more money if you sold your ads yourself?

Bottom line: selling your own premium ad inventory can lead to a big boost in your business – and not enough websites are trying it or doing it well.

emeril-bamRemnant advertising via networks and exchanges is very popular, and they definitely serve a purpose / fill a need. We believe that remnant ads are a good thing but not the only or even best thing. Like most things in life and business it’s best to have a balance between remnant and premium, and finding the right mix can do wonders for your advertising.

The problem is ad sellers / web publishers started focusing on ad networks as their main source of ad revenue. After all, it was quick and easy! You put some JavaScript on your website and BAM!, Google starts magically sending you checks. As the industry focused on building ad networks and exchanges to meet this demand, relatively little progress was made with premium ads and tools that support them.

Premium Ads Make More Money

When you’re selling ads, you can usually figure out how much money you’re making from your ad inventory by measuring eCPM, or effective cost per thousand impressions. When you’re using ad networks you often earn an eCPM of less than $1.00.

Ads that you sell directly can be sold for higher prices – or in other words, you can sell them at a “premium” (get it?). The average difference in pricing for what is essentially the same ad space can be as high as 10X! That means you might be getting paid $1 per thousand impressions by a network when the same ad spot sold as a premium ad could have brought you $10.

Here’s a recent and controversial MediaPost blog that shows some of the direct sales vs remnant pricing math. Regardless of the math’s merits, it’s good people are debating the topic.

Why The Big Price Difference?

Because the buyer is getting things they can’t get when they buy remnant ads through a network or exchange. After all, ad buyers aren’t stupid or willing to throw money away – but they will pay more for a better product!

Some of the direct sales benefits to ad buyers:

Remember the brick and mortar store example from the first post in this series? There’s value for the buyer to see and touch the product, to talk directly with the shopkeeper about what’s right for them, etc. There’s a level of personal touch and customization. You can’t get that when you buy a billion impressions from a thousand websites via a network.

There Are More Benefits For Sellers, Too!

Premium ads and direct sales isn’t just about making more money. Many publishers use direct sales because it’s a better fit for their business and how they want to spend their time. Many of the benefits listed above for buyers are also mirrored as benefits for sellers:

So How Do I Do It?

In the next post of the series, we’ll walk through how direct sales typically works, what’s wrong with it, and how isocket helps make it easier for you!

Let us know in the comments which of these benefits you like most or if there any reasons we might have missed? Would love to hear what you all think of premium direct sales.

May 1, 2009 | Filed Under Advertising

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The Two Types of Web Display Ads: Premium vs Remnant

This is part 1 of a 4 post series about direct sales and web display ads. Many website owners are benefiting from or considering selling ads on their sites directly. But direct sales can be confusing and it isn’t right for everyone. The posts:

  1. The Two Types of Web Display Ads: Premium vs Remnant
  2. Why Direct Sales Is A Great Way To Sell Ads
  3. How isocket Powers Premium Ad Sales
  4. Should I Try Direct Ad Sales On My Website?

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There are two types of inventory when it comes to website display (i.e. banner) ads – premium and remnant. Understanding the difference and how it applies to you is crucial to making the most out of your advertising revenue and strategy.

From a technical view, there is no difference between a premium ad and a remnant ad. They are the same shape and size, the advertisement (called the “creative”) could look identical, they both count as an impression every time they are seen, and they both link to the advertiser’s website. Mike Nolet, formerly of Right Media, has an excellent series of posts with his opinion on this subject.

The basic difference between premium and remnant is how the ad was bought and sold. Premium ads are sold by a seller/publisher directly to a buyer/advertiser. Or in other words, an advertiser bought the exact ad they wanted from the exact website they wanted.

direct-sales

Pretend you own a brick and mortar store… you do some local marketing about your products, a customer walks in, you chat about what they are looking for, they pick the product they want, they pay you, and they leave. It’s a 1 to 1, face to face relationship. That’s direct sales and premium ad inventory.

Remnant ads are sold by someone else, where your ad inventory was pooled together with thousands or millions of other websites and sold to a buyer you’ve never met. Remnant ads are “leftovers”. Almost all ad networks put remnant ads on your website. The biggest network AdSense (created by our own Gokul Rajaram) is a perfect example.

Let’s say only 30% of a website’s available ad inventory has been purchased directly by an advertiser. The other 70% of inventory could a) show no ads at all or b) show ads from an ad network. The thinking is you may as well show remnant ads, because some money is better than no money, right?

The problem (as you’ll see in the next posts) is that even though remnant ads are easy to use and usually make up the numerical majority of a website’s ad impressions, they are usually not your only/best option.

April 30, 2009 | Filed Under Advertising

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