Lookery.com

Per the WSJ this morning…

But weak demand is simply highlighting the more fundamental oversupply problem — and pressuring prices. The cost per thousand views of display ads on big Web sites sold through ad networks — rather than sales forces of individual sites, which usually handle premium inventory — fell 54% in the fourth quarter compared with the year earlier, estimates PubMatic, which offers online services to publishers.

I’ve spent the last six weeks out selling Demographic Retargeting and Open Retargeting, much of it in NYC (It’s going ok, thanks). Selling our Facebook ad network last fall was a complete about-face for us, in a way that I didn’t appreciate at the time. We’ve gone from a service that brokered ad networks on behalf of FB app publishers to a data sales team that focuses on the strongest, most-controlling media sales forces we can find.

It’s a far trendier change than I’d normally sign up for, but the task of those sales forces is also changing rapidly this year. For the first time, even the super swanks of Madison Ave are getting forced by their customers to use real data. That’s a challenge we can meet as long as we’re quick, cheap, and careful.