'Net Features : Infolinks

Infolinks Battles Banner Blindness

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:36:00 GMT

If Display is Broken, Is Infolinks In3 the Creative Fix?

Many digital advertising gurus have been heralding the end of display for - geesh, I don't know - about as long as I've been on the 'Net (that would be pushing fifteen years by the way). In that time, I feel as though I've seen it all. But perhaps I haven't!

Infolinks, a digital advertising platform with a rather extensive history on the 'Net, has released a new suite of real-time, intent-based advertising products dubbed In3 (which stands for Infolinks, Intent and Intelligence). The set of ad units, according to Infolinks, appear in "unexpected but sensible spots on the page".

"Online display advertising is fundamentally broken," says Dave Zinman, InfoLinks new chief executive officer (and the former GM of Display at Yahoo!). "Site visitors rarely notice ads, there are too many and most are irrelevant. Engagement metrics are down. Banner blindness is killing the golden goose. This is the reason I've joined Infolinks. The In3 platform was developed expressly to deliver high-performing, creative solutions. In fact, Infolinks ads have been shown to deliver 30 times the engagement rate of standard IAB units."

30 times the engagement rate is quite the draw, but let's take a closer look at the formats to see if this is the hope we need or the hype we don't:

InFrame: Monetizes unused screen margins, framing site layouts with display banner ads. The In3 platform auto-detects when the browser window is wider than the website and inserts display ads that remain stationary as users scroll down the page.

InSearch: An overlay that appears when vistors arrive via a search engine. The unit features messaging relevant to the users query and dissappars after a few seconds, shrinking to a headline sized ad.

InTag: A tag cloud of keywords (more of a linear listing really) relevant to the content, which when clicked, pops up a window leading to advertising.

InText: In-line text advertising that has been the staple of Infolink product line for years.

Infolinks Launches In-Text Ad Marketplace

Allison Howen — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:00:00 GMT

Infolinks, an in-text advertising network, has announced the launch of a new self-service in-text advertising marketplace.

The new service allows for advertisers to quickly create an in-text advertising campaign that includes various target options. Some included features in the self-service marketplace are real-time reporting, keyword selection, keyword bidding and advanced optimization.

“Infolinks' new self-service model now makes it easy for anyone familiar with Google Adwords to quickly launch an In-Text Advertising campaign,” says Tomar Treves, chief marketing officer of Infolinks.

“Other services match advertisements to relevant keyword searches, the entire context of the website or the interests of the user. With Infolinks In-Text Advertising Marketplace, people are actively choosing to open the advertisement in a contextually relevant environment making them much more open to the advertiser's message.”

Use of the new service costs $5 a day. On average, Infolinks delivers in-text advertising campaigns across 250 billion pages and reaches 350 million unique visitors each month.

Infolinks Launches Tag Cloud

Allison Howen — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 02:30:00 GMT

In-text advertising provider Infolinks is introducing a new program called Tag Cloud.

Tag Cloud is a departure from traditional in-text advertising services and so could be financially appealing for affiliates. Infolinks publishers during testing saw a 20-percent increase in earnings after applying Tag Cloud to their websites. Not only was the increase instant according to testers, but also sustainable over the two month trial.

“Infolinks follows the notion that advertising works best by reaching out to webizens when they are most engaged, but without distracting them from the golden content of the page they are reading,” says Tomer Treves, the CMO of Infolinks.

Tag Cloud uses keywords, which are chosen by an Infolinks algorithm and ensures the highest paying ads appear. Publishers are paid per click, and when a tagged word is clicked the reader is taken to the landing page of that advertiser.

Tag Cloud is also customizable with four different color schemes: crystal, daylight, evening and seashore. The availability of color schemes allows for a more aesthetically appealing and cohesive site.

Sample of the InfoLinks Tag Cloud below:

Hadoop and HBase for Infolinks

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:00:00 GMT

Here’s one news items that both the developer community and Internet marketers might find interesting. Online in-text advertising service Infolinks has implemented Hadoop and HBase to their system. I know, exciting right? Actually, strangely, it is.

By implementing these technologies, Infolinks will be able to provide much more finely-tuned statistics – which the company hopes will improve the publisher payouts and advertiser exposure. “The integration of Hadoop and HBase enhances our analytical capabilities for the large amount of data at our disposal, which in turn raises the precision of our keywords,” shared Moshe Moses, Infolinks CTO and VP of R&D.

Hadoop provides a framework for large scale parallel processing using a distributed file system and the map-reduce programming paradigm. The Apache Hadoop project develops open-source software for scalable, distributed computing. Hadoop includes such subprojects as Map Reduce and HBase - a scalable, distributed database that supports structured data storage for large tables.

Infolinks and similar in-text advertising services have been for the most part on the fringe of available promotional and monetization considerations. Using technologies currently in play by companies like Facebook, Twitter and Amazon is certainly a way to return to the view of Web professionals (or it should be).

New In-Text Advertising Platform from Atma Links

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:50:00 GMT

Atma Links has launched an an in-text linking technology that is focused in helping affiliates monetize online content.

The service has been in beta since March 2010 but went live last week. What may seperate Atma from the dozens of other in-text providers like Kontera, Vibrant and InfoLinks, is that in addition to converting regular hyperlinks, the service builds new affilaite links from "unambiguous" product references in plain text. In that respect, Atma Link is similar to the recent product release from Skimlinks dubbed Skimwords.

"Atma Links is designed to help publishers capture a lucrative new in-text revenue source without having to compromise readability or editorial integrity. Optimizing the relevancy, volume, and appearance of links is a science that eludes traditional in-text advertising," said Atmalink founder Chris Dickson. "We think that our customizable solution is the most user friendly version on the market. Visitors recognize and appreciate that intention immediately."

Test Results Underscore Potential of New In-text Ad Feature

Linc Wonham — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:30:00 GMT

After two months of testing yielded a 30-percent average increase in revenues for 200 selected Web publishers, Infolinks has introduced its latest in-text advertising feature to the market. Related Tags leverages the ability of the Infolinks algorithm to analyze the most powerful keywords on a Web page and match them with relevant ads.

The new feature supplements the current double-underlined text links of in-text ads by adding a cloud that contains carefully selected informational tags within the content of a Web page. The tags perform similarly to in-text ads in that they produce an Infolinks advertisement bubble when a user hovers over them, and the user is then directed to the advertiser’s landing page if they click on the bubble. The publisher displaying the ads earns revenues each time a user clicks on one of the Infolinks ad bubbles.

Related Tags are customizable to fit the look and feel of individual publishers’ websites, and as easy to integrate as traditional in-text ads. The 200 publishers that tested the new feature covered a wide range of audience sizes, website categories and geographic locations.