Adify Ad Networks Commits Online Suicide

Everton | Jun 08, 2009 | View Comments


I try to not make calls or send emails at work in anger, and this is the first time I’ve done this on this site, but the Adify Ad Network that I’m a part of have just made one of the stupidest business decisions I have ever come across, which is surely going to lead to a number of publishers reducing the number of ad impressions they deliver via Adify or who will leave the network completely.

If you haven’t come across Adify before, in addition to selling their own campaigns they provide ad network services to companies like Forbes, Six Apart, Dennis Publishing and The Guardian newspaper allowing them to run their own private ad networks, where they can sell their own campaigns and offer them to publishers who are accepted onto their private networks.  In total, Adify power 180 networks on behalf of other companies.

The beauty of being an Adify Publisher is that you can apply to multiple networks and if accepted, ads from all networks that you are a member of are served via one set of ad tags, and Adify manage the whole process to ensure that the ad from the network with the highest paying ad is always displayed first, ensuring that fill rates and eCPMs are as high as possible.

The mad decision that my Adify representative has just told me about, is that from mid July Adify will no longer allow publishers to manage their network memberships through one dashboard and one set of ad tags.  Now publishers will have to setup a separate account for each network they are a member of i.e. join multiple networks rather than ‘one’.  This will mean that publishers will only be able to show campaigns from one network at a time, rather than from multiple networks at a time:

Dear Valued Publisher:

We would like to inform you of some important changes we are making that will affect the way you use Adify and the networks of which you are a part.

Although these changes potentially affect many customers using the Adify platform, due to your large quantity of sites and network relationships you may need special assistance.

Here’s a very brief summary of the changes we are making that affect you:

Starting in mid-July…

- Adify is moving toward an architecture that maximizes our capacity and scalability.

- In order to achieve this goal, each account may only be associated with a single network.

- Therefore, each ad tag may only run campaigns from one network (plus Adify Media campaigns approved by that network).

- If you would like to continue to have advertising on your site from multiple networks, you will need to use separate accounts. Your primary account, with all of the historical reporting it contains, may be associated with one of your current networks.

I’m currently a member of six Adify networks, so it will be impossible for me to maintain my earnings because I can only queue ads from one network at a time, rather than having a pool of six to choose like I do currently.  I could try and manually manage my six networks by juggling them each day based on what campaigns they have running, but it would be too much work (I have 3 sites that have different types of content, geo profiles etc so I’d have to optimise each site differently) and I’d probably be better off just handing over my banner impressions to one big network.  

Adify just don’t seem to understand that their attractiveness to publishers was from being able to bring together small networks who by themselves can’t sell enough campaigns to attract business.  They claim this change is to allow them to make the service faster and more scalable, but they obviously haven’t consulted with publishers, because they are going to lose a lot of ad impressions as publishers leave the service.  

I really hope that Adify realise that this is a big mistake, otherwise I’m going to have to join the mass exodus away from Adify.  Otherwise Adify’s platform will only get more efficient because it is serving significantly fewer ads.

Are you an Adify publisher?  How is this change going to impact you?


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About the Author: Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University.He also writes for Windows 7 News, Windows 8 News and One Tip A Day.

  • bobdebilder
    What has been the outcome of this change for most?
  • This messed me up too... now I dont know what network to go with. :(
  • We'll be leaving adify as well when this change is implemented.

    expecting us to go to some adserver and start setting rotations of 6 different networks (or however many I'm a member of) ia ridiculous. That ELIMINATES the need for adify, since instead of serving the best paying ad first, we'll just be serving set %'s of ads from each publisher, having to micromanage. That's a waste of time.

    As for the great PR people from adify coming in here, that's cute and all, but the reality is, we're the publishers. We've got the ad space. We call the shots. And making a decision like this shows you don't why you are valueable, or you are more interested in serving impressions to low level "cheap" networks that don't pay good CPM's. Becuase that's what's going to happen when adify stops being an ad server and instead some kind of tag supplier. Forget that.

    Direct Media Exchange, PubMatic, OpenX.....all exchanges, one tag per ad.

    Adify....6 logins for 6 networks. With a 5-ad site, that's 30 DIFFERENT TAGS.

    You've messed up Adify. The market will show you why.

    http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2009/06/15/adify-ad...

    And for the idea that the network is growing, or that publishers are jumping on board, etc....more and more, we get emails from Adify networks saying THEY are leaving adify. Obviously for the same kind of treatment.

    I emailed Adify the day I got the notification, not only to the sender, but to the personal emails I've got with Adify, Adify Elite publishing, etc. Shocker...no answer.

    Why adify....really?
  • Ron M
    You guys don't get it. I know you want to make better money, which I do too. But Adify doesn't care about you, their customers are the Forbes and the Martha Stewart's of the world.

    Forbes doesn't want you to be in other networks, it devalues their network. Forbes and Martha wants to own the first rights to the sites in their network. If they have to compete with 6 other networks for the inventory on the site the value Adify brings is much less.

    I do agree Adify needs to find a way to let us optimize our inventory across any networks we join. They have to find a way to do this, though I would guess the majority of the sites in the networks they power are only in that one network.
  • Adify may want to keep their network customers happy, but this change still is the wrong way to go about it:

    - Adify will have less to offer networks if they have no publishers
    - networks will have less traffic to say they have in their networks to offer to advertisers. At the moment even if their network is not getting onto a site because they aren't the highest paying, this isn't stopping them claiming to advertisers that the site's traffic is part of their network
    - networks that would have got remnant impressions won't any longer becuase the market won't be as efficient, and remnant ads will now go to non-adify networks.
  • Amit
    I got this email too.

    This is an utterly ridiculous thing to say and do.

    The WHOLE POINT of Adify is to put together multiple ad networks with one ad tag, and serve the joint inventory.

    Otherwise - why even bother with them in the middle. I'm taking my business elsewhere.

    I have to say - Adify are simply retarded. Probably run my some MBA/agency idiot rather than someone who has common sense.
  • Hi Everton,

    I'm in the same situation.. I just received this notification from Adify, and I'm really, REALLY pissed off.

    My revenue with adify is gonna drop about 50% because of this... Oh, we could create new ad spots to monetize our inventory for each separate ad network, but this will be very bad for user experience.

    *sigh*
  • What really annoyed me was they switched me over last week, rather than letting me make as much money for as long as possible. I got them to switch back though.

    You'll have to do what I'm going to do which is pick your best network and keep an eye on the others, and if they ever have a good campaign weigh up whether it's worth showing. I also spent this afternoon applying for other networks.

    Whatever happens we will all lose money - you, me, other publishers and Adify.
  • Hi Everton,

    We’re sorry to hear that some of the changes we’re planning for the Adify system are having a negative impact for you. Your membership in Adify-powered networks is very important to us. Adify Customer Service has already reached out to you to speak on the phone, but hopefully I can provide some more useful info.

    Over the past three years, we’ve seen immense growth in the number of Adify-powered networks (now 180+), and the number of publishers in those networks (now 12,000+). In order to be able to continue scaling the Adify system at the pace we’ve been experiencing, we’re planning to implement a “one network per publisher account” rule.

    As you pointed out in your post, our “one network per publisher account” rule is no different than rules used by every other ad network. As with your other ad networks, you have the option to use multiple accounts, and to “juggle” the tags from multiple Adify-powered networks.

    There is no “mass exodus” from Adify. In fact, we’re seeing more networks, more publishers, and more advertisers. That’s why we’re making these system changes. Though I understand that the management of ad tags from multiple Adify-powered networks may mean more work for you to implement and monitor, I would disagree with the notion that you’d be “better off by handing over (your) impressions to one big network.”

    Adify-powered networks have an entirely different purpose than the “big ad networks”. They exist as brand extensions for well-known media brands such as Forbes, The Guardian, and Six Apart to sell extended reach to brand advertisers who are willing to pay higher CPMs to ensure that their campaigns run on high-quality sites like your own. The “big ad networks”, in contrast, are a clearinghouse for leftover ad inventory, meaning that campaigns on these networks are lower-CPM.

    For this reason, I’d respectfully contend that your continued membership in Adify-powered networks will bring higher CPMs and higher earnings to you than a “big ad network” strategy will bring. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to contact Adify Customer Support with any questions.

    Sincerely,

    Bryan Sise
    Director, Product Marketing
    Adify
  • Hi Bryan

    Thanks for taking the time to respond to my frustrations.

    Yes, I agree that Adify networks tend to have better eCPMs than bigger networks. However, because they are smaller networks they have fewer campaigns so the only way to get decent fill rates is to be a member of several small networks i.e. your old business model.

    In your new business model to maintain a decent fill rate I would have to spend an unreasonable amount of time juggling tags between these smallnetworks. My point was it might be easier for me to be part of a bigger network where my eCPM may be 50% less, but my fill rate 300% higher.

    As it stands my rep has sent my network stats and one of my networks accounts for 30-50% of my Adify earnings, so I will stay with that network. This does still mean that my Adify earnings will now FALL 50% and as you quite rightly pointed out the eCPMs on other networks are lower so this money will not be fully replaced, so this has cost me a significant amount of money and that's why I'm not happy.
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