We’ve learnt a lot since launching our Self-Serve Advertising Platform for premium publishers in January 2010.   One of the most important elements to providing a simple and effective way for advertisers to purchase ads directly on a publisher’s web or mobile properties is how a publisher promotes their “new” self-serve advertising product.

Smaller advertisers are unaware that they can advertise directly on a specific website as there hasn’t been any technology to do that and all premium websites have a minimum ad buy amount that is typically much higher than what a small advertiser can afford.  As a result, since its launched in 2000, Google AdWords has been synonymous with self-serve online advertising for small advertisers.

To overcome this hurdle, premium publishers need to promote and offer incentives for their white-labeled self-serve advertising product.  One way to promote the new self-serve advertising product is to highlight it on high-traffic web pages.  The other way is to market and promote it to existing advertisers.

Today, Shiny Ads is launching a set of powerful marketing and promotion tools to assist our publisher partners in generating greater revenue from their advertisers.  Of course, all options are optional and highly configurable by the publisher.

Cart Abandonment Incentives – Automatically sends the advertiser an email plus an optional promotional discount code at specific intervals after they have created an ad buy, but have not paid for it.

Campaign Renewal Incentives – Automatically sends the advertiser an email plus an optional promotional discount code at specific intervals after their campaign is fully delivered, but they have not renewed and purchased a new one.

Frequent Buyer Incentives – Automatically sends frequent advertisers a promotional discount code to thank them for their loyalty.

Sales Events – Allows the publisher to set specific time frames throughout the year that trigger a sales event for their ad products and automatically emails their current and past advertisers about the upcoming sales event.

Special Promotional Broadcasts – Allows the publisher to quickly send an email with an optional promotional discount code out to all current and previous advertisers.

Weekly Campaign Status Emails – Each active advertiser now receives a weekly campaign status email displaying total impressions and clicks, plus the option to purchase another campaign form the same publisher.

Importing of Previous Advertisers – A publisher’s promotional emails can be sent to not only their advertisers on Shiny Ads, but also their previous advertisers.  Those previous advertisers can be imported quickly either from a list of email address or through our  SalesForce.com integration.

In case you missed it the video is below and you can find the blog post at xconnectto.com.

Roy and Zunaid were also interviewed for two separate articles with the Toronto Star and Toronto Standard.

Roy spoke with John Spear of the Toronto Star about how Angels play a crucial role in funding start-up companies. And Zunaid spoke to Toronto Standard’s Navneet Alang, bringing insight to the question, “Is Toronto Technophobic?” If you have a moment, check them out!

A majority of online publishers primarily focus their ad sales efforts on agencies and large brand advertisers via their direct sales force. The cost of operation for this sales channel often requires them to set a minimum ad buy per campaign. In conversations I’ve had with multiple online publishers in North America we have heard that the cost of running an online campaign ranges from $2,500 to $4,000 per campaign. This includes the sales, operations and finance costs. As such you will find that minimum ad buys are set between $2,500 and $10,000 per buy.

With that said, advertisers seeking to purchase smaller ad orders are unable to work directly with online publishers because of these minimums. In most cases, smaller advertisers will spend their advertising budget on solutions like Google AdSense. The limited amount of options for smaller advertisers has a direct effect on online publishers; either they will only generate a small amount of revenue from ad networks or it will all go to companies like Google.

Although their ad orders are of a smaller dollar value, the number of potential advertisers in this segment of the market far exceeds those of large brands; according to Borrel, SMBs make up for 95 percent of all local advertising online. Therefore, it is illogical for publishers to not seek a more effective solution to serve the smaller advertiser market. The potential to generate a higher eCPM than you would from an ad network or exchange is there; it just needs to be considered.

In my 15 years of experience in the digital media world, I have explored this topic in depth and feel there is one option that is simple enough for advertisers (without experience) to work with and provides publishers with a decent return: self-serve advertising platforms. With a self-serve solution, publishers can automate the sales, operations and finance components of running a campaign thereby making the process of servicing smaller advertisers less costly and more profitable. There is no human involvement from the perspective of an online publisher, which can be the most costly component.

Obviously a solution like this will not work if it is not properly promoted, but if done well, can make a big impact on publisher’s ad revenues. But don’t take my word for it; try it out for yourself! Most solutions work on a revenue sharing model so it’s free to get started.

Anyone out there try a self-serve solution yet? If so, I’d love to hear about your experience. Feel free to comment and let’s get the conversation started!

Also published on the AdMonsters blog.

And we have more good news to share! We just found out that Shiny Ads was selected to pitch at the Plug and Play EXPO on the second day of 48Hrs in the Valley. The plug and Play EXPO features 30 promising startups pitching to over 100 VC investors. Roy Pereira, Founder/CEO of Shiny Ads says, “C100 is a great organization that has a history of connecting the best with the best – Canadian entrepreneurs with partners in Silicon Valley – and we’re proud to be included. This is an amazing opportunity for Shiny Ads and we’re ready to shine during our 48 hours in the Valley!”

HOORAY! Another one under our belt!

Thank you for realizing our potential, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada! We truly appreciate the support and are honoured to be involved with TGI and all the great things the program is doing for the Canadian tech community!

The win will give Shiny Ads access to Canada’s Trade Consulates in the US.

“And what is TGI?”, you ask. It is a unique 360° turnaround process allowing qualified emerging Canadian technology companies in the IT, Cleantech/Environmental Technology and Life sciences sectors access to dynamic U.S. markets in four phases; 6 business focused webinars, one-day business bootcamp, specialty designed technology pipeline, and aftercare. For more information on the program visit href=”http://www.tradecommissioner.gc.ca/eng/document.jsp?did=112057″>www.tradecommissioner.gc.ca

“A lot of the other companies had great technology and great teams, but their businesses had more visible constraints,” says Jonathan Teo, Managing Director of General Cataylst Partners. Teo noted, however, that Shiny Ads and UberTags were close runners-up. Check out the full story.

Thank you to Business Insider and the organizers of Startup 2011. The conference was invaluable and has helped bring Shiny Ads closer to our goals. Much love!

But the love doesn’t stop there. Check out the other article from Business Insider by Paul Denlinger – Shiny Ads Help With Small Inventory Ad Campaigns.

We are flattered to have been chosen as one of the 8 finalists from over 100 entries and the only Canadian company on the roster. We can guarantee a very interesting 4 minutes. That’s right, only 4 minutes… now to decide which of our 8642 slides to cut out.

Sprouter – “Shiny Ads receives seed funding for self-serve ad platform”

TechVibes – “Shiny Ads raises $500K in seed funding from Maple Leaf Angels and York Angels”

VentureBeat – “Deals & More: Shiny Ads raises $500K for self-serve ad platform”

SF Gate – “Shiny Ads Secures Funding For Its’ Award-Winning Self-Serve Advertising Platform”

Reuters c/o Venture Beat – “Deals & More: Shiny Ads raises $500K for self-serve ad platform”

Ad Ops Online – “Shiny Ads Secures Funding for Its Award-Winning Self-Serve Advertising Platform”

Profectio – “Advertising Platform, Shiny Ads, Secures Angel Funding”

We are excited and honoured to be part of such a talented group of startups – congrats to us all!

Below is a summary of the report c/o @49pixels.

• Toronto’s ICT sector employs over 161,000 workers (not including those employed in ICT-related sectors, such as financial services)
• ICT is the 7th largest industry sector in Toronto by number of workers employed
• Average ICT wages are $64,725; 6.6% above the Toronto wage average
• Unemployment rate for ICT professionals is 4%; significantly lower than the general economy
• The Toronto ICT industry employs fully 30% of Canada’s ICT workforce
• MEIC and Extreme Venture Partners have been named as players in mobile innovation and business incubation
• Twenty-one of the companies listed on the 2009 Profit Magazine 100 are Toronto ICT companies
• A few of the emerging Toronto companies to watch (as listed in the report): Sysomos, Rypple, MyCityLives, TeamSave, EndLoop Studios, ShinyAds, and Cover It Live

To book a meeting during the conference please fill out this short form or contact
Zunaid Khan – VP, Business Development & Sales | zunaid[at]shinyads[dot]com or 416 800 7340 x5

ABOUT SHINY ADS
Shiny Ads is a Toronto based advertising technology company focused on helping online publishers maximize revenue from advertisers of all sizes. With Shiny Ads, publishers have control over the entire ad purchasing process by a simple, user-friendly self-serve advertising platform integrated into their backend. It allows small and local (long-tail) advertisers to quickly and easily purchase advertising without the need for industry knowledge, graphic designers, or a large budget.

As THE event for digital marketers, ad:tech features the industry’s most entrepreneurial and innovative marketers. By attending, you’ll have the opportunity to network and learn from experts on what’s hot in social media, mobile, viral, cross-channel, application-based and geo-location marketing. You can also walk the ad:tech Expo hall floor to meet one-on-one with 300+ influential, leading-edge businesses and experts who specialize in everything from search and publishing to video, mobile and much more.