Viral Ad Network

When we first launched the Viral Ad Network, we provided publishers with two methods for ads to be inserted onto their page.

Ads could either be inserted into a <div> (which used a blocking document.write call behind the scenes), or they could be inserted into an <iframe>. The majority of publishers only ever used the iframe method, but a few were provided with div insertion codes.

As our ad serving capabilities have advanced, we’ve created more and more formats which only work when inserted as an iframe (e.g. What we now call “Fun Units”).

At the same time, we have advanced our iframe insertion significantly:

• iframes are now loaded asynchronously on most web browsers – meaning your website loads much faster while our ads load in parallel.
• We’ve added lightbox ad formats, and extra library methods for ads which make our iframes super-powerful.

iframes brought many other improvements, such as fraud prevention and extra security for viewers from potential “malvertising” and “clickjacking” attacks.

We have now switched all ad unit embeds over to the iframe method.

You do not need to make any changes, and this should affect very few publishers.

However, if your current ad unit embed code contains a <script> tag pointing to this url:

http://syndication1.viraladnetwork.net/getad/?style=frame

Then you can now make your site a little bit faster for some users by changing that url to:

http://syndication1.viraladnetwork.net/getad/

All new embed codes will reference this new url, and the probability that it will already be cached in your user’s browser (or by a proxy) is higher.

The Media Blog has a really good article on the Daily Mail’s online presence.

According to The Guardian, the UK based Daily Mail has overtaken the New York Times to the most viewed online newspaper position.

The Media Blog explains that this has largely been achieved by the Mail Online focusing on scantily-clad celebrities, female figures in Bikinis, and other titillating content. This makes it’s readership quite different from the “white, middle-aged, middle class of middle England who worry about a news agenda of wheelie bins, cancer, hoodies, liberals and multiculturalism” that the Daily Mail’s print version caters to (as the Media Blog describes the audience).

But how much of a good example does this set for publishers?

Yes, the Mail has increased it’s readership very significantly – but the question is what has that done to their bottom line?

Very few brands would choose to advertise next to this kind of risqué content – meaning less competition, and lower prices. For those who are advertising, user engagement rate is likely to be lower – leading to lower click through rates.

A quick search for “Mail Online Revenue” brought the results I was expecting. Paid Content reported in July that the revenue per user had almost halved over two years – despite readership having increased by 82% in a single year.

After the overheads for serving content to this many viewers is included, it would be interesting to see how much of this reduced revenue they managed to turn to profit. Finding that out by itself would be difficult.

The Mail Online’s parent group (Associated Newspaper’s) reported a loss of $1,407,127.19 on digital operations in the year ending October 2011, which their CEO put down to struggling to sell ad space in the US, as well as capital spent on growth of operations.

The Mail’s $1.4M loss is compared to the NYTimes’ performance in Q3 alone, who posted digital revenue of $50.3M, and total net income of $15.7M across the company ($20M up from the year before) – despite declining revenue from print.

Perhaps the Mail Online isn’t setting such a great example to other publishers after all…