NEW YORK, Oct. 17, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- ContextWeb, Inc., a contextual online advertising exchange, announced today that it has opened its ADSDAQ(tm) ad exchange to all site publishers. The ADSDAQ "Selling Desk" (http://exchange.contextweb.com/sellingdesk), an easy-to-use self service web application, allows publishers to name the CPM they would ask for their inventory. Even smaller publishers with very limited technical expertise will now be able to make their inventory available on the exchange. Until today, the ADSDAQ exchange has been only open to a select group of publishers, including A&E Television Networks (including History.com, Biography.com and AETV.com), Raging Bull and Salary.com.
The Selling Desk will increase ADSDAQ's reach to the dedicated communities found on niche content sites and blogs. Advertisers participating in the exchange will reach a much larger audience and find a greater amount of inventory that will meet their bid prices. According to Media Screen, interest in the products and brands advertised on smaller sites and blogs is actually higher than on larger sites, 42 percent versus 38 percent.
"We're thrilled to announce that as of today, ADSDAQ will be open to all publishers. It's no secret that smaller sites and blogs are attracting interest from both Internet users and brand advertisers," says Anand Subramanian, CEO of ContextWeb, Inc. "The ADSDAQ exchange offers large and small premium content sites to brand advertisers who want brand safe access to customers at significant scale."
"With the ability to instantly examine and categorize the content of pages in the exchange, ADSDAQ will continue to provide the safe environment so important to our client brands as we scale in size to meet the needs of a larger audience," said Amy Auerbach, Vice President and Director of PHDiQ East, the interactive division of PHD, a media buying and planning firm owned by Omnicom.
Among the benefits for publishers entering the exchange:
* Naming their CPM price. When a publisher's inventory clears the ADSDAQ exchange, they will be paid the CPM price they set, which means no revenue sharing, no blind revenue sharing and no guessing. * Serving ad tags from other exchanges and ad networks. When ADSDAQ cannot clear inventory at the publisher's set CPM "AskPrice," it will serve tags from backup networks and exchanges designated by the publisher such as Google AdSense, Advertising.com and Right Media. * No Risk. Either ADSDAQ will beat the price of a publisher's current network or exchange partners, or it will serve the backup networks they specify.
Paul Rinehart of OnlineCooking.net, who participated in the limited release of the ADSDAQ self-service application this past summer, says, "The ADSDAQ exchange is extremely easy to use and the service is outstanding. I created my first ad tag in minutes and then set the CPM price I wanted to earn. Other ad networks and exchanges have gotten it wrong -- from design to performance. ADSDAQ has nailed it on the head."
Publishers in ADSDAQ's earlier testing were pleased by the results with 87 percent saying they were "satisfied with the overall" experience and 83 percent saying they would recommend the service to other publishers.
The blogging community has also embraced the value of ADSDAQ. "Because we can set our CPM inventory price and have the flexibility for dynamic pricing as our inventory situation changes, over time we can learn how to optimize our pricing and be able to better project our revenue. This is a unique benefit of working with ADSDAQ," says Celticsblog.com blogger Jeff Clark, another participant in the limited release this past summer.
ADSDAQ plans to begin testing a self serve web application for advertisers early next year. The goal of this new automated access to the exchange is to allow additional advertisers and ad agencies to join the hundreds of advertisers and major ad agencies currently reaching audiences across sites on the exchange.
ContextWeb (www.contextweb.com) was founded in 2000 and launched the ADSDAQ exchange in 2005. The exchange's patent-pending, page-level technology offers advertisers efficient pricing and extensive reach, making inventory on the exchange comparable to a site specific buy. As of August 2007, ContextWeb's ADSDAQ ranks among the top 25 ad supported properties, according to comScore Media Metrix reaching more than 70 million monthly unique visitors. The exchange serves impressions from more than 350 advertisers, including 12 of the top 15 ad agencies, and 1,000 publishers. Also in 2007, Deloitte's New York Region Technology Fast 50 recognized ContextWeb as the 17th fastest growing company in the New York area. ContextWeb investors include leading venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Updata Partners.
The ContextWeb, Inc. logo is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=3669