Last week we launched the inaugural “Money Bomb” at Blabbermouth.net. (If you missed my post about it click here.)

Earlier today, Money Bomb Week 2 was launched with slight modifications to the business model. Out of 16 total campaign buys last week alone, all clients (except for one) chose the most costly Indie campaign available, that being the “double-banner” which was one 728×90 Leaderboard spot carved to accomodate two Indie ads (see demo). It turns out that our Indie banners featuring three & four ads per banner were moot from the getgo. I can only assume that most clients thought it would be wiser to pay the extra cost for the top campaign as well as the added square pixel coverage per banner.

This week, due to shrinking supply in topline inventory at Blabbermouth.net we have added a 160×600 Skyscraper version of our Indie banners (see demo). It offers the same raw exposure in terms of impressions as the 728×90 Leaderboard spot but is priced at two-thirds of the cost. It will be interesting to see by our booking deadline on April 9th if there is enough interest in the Skyscraper to keep it going.

All up the Money Bomb has been a tremendous success in its first week. Granted it’s only week 2 so we’ll need to wait a couple more weeks to determine sales trends and viability.

The important part though is that we’ve sold 20 new campaigns at this point. All are new clients to Fixion Media, which gives us more ammo to perhaps ban all remnant ad networks from working with us. Such firms have failed time and again to monetize display ads and furthermore provide quality, relevant ads.

Long live the vertical.

Filed under: Vertical Ad Networks, Fixion Media News, The Future, Music Industry, Artists, Money Bomb

Be First To Comment

…but the fact that we signed to Adtech earned us a name-drop in ClickZ.

Despite being forever legitimized in ClickZ we’ll be sure to keep disturbing the peace in the underground music scene. No one ever sees the underdog coming.

Filed under: Announcements, Vertical Ad Networks, Fixion Media News, The Future, Adtech Helios IQ

Be First To Comment

I was inspired by Obama and Ron Paul. Grandfather Howard Dean and Joe Trippi must also be proud of my accomplishments.

Early this morning we (that being Fixion Media) launched a pilot program at Blabbermouth.net enabling independent artists and record labels to share in the cost of advertising. Much like Google ads, except branded and far more relevant, our shared Indie banner template shatters the barrier of entry for clients of all sizes.

Here’s an example campaign from the original story posted by Blabbermouth.net:

Double Banner Features:

• Shared banner (2 ad spots available per banner)
• More than 50% discount compared to “non-Indie” banner campaign
• Top-of-page “Leaderboard” placement alongside other premium advertisers
• Your ad rotates within a BLABBERMOUTH.NET-branded double banner frame
• Ad Specs: 350px x 70px - GIF, JPG, or Flash - Max 50KB File Size
• Click here to view a demo of the Double Banner.

Campaigns ranged from $75 to $150 USD.

The long and short of this story is that it was our goal to sell 10 campaigns in 48 hours. It’s a quick blitz; a cash infusion that is certainly scalable. Less than 24 hours in and we’ve closed 7 deals. This being a new campaign offering for Fixion Media at Blabbermouth.net, interest may be yet to peak. We don’t know yet. The important part is that we will likely meet our target by this evening.

But the experiment in itself was to test the “top down” versus “bottom up” donation strategy used frequently by politicians these days. Rather than sell our inventory to the higest bidder–which in remnant terms is nothing short of an insulting figure–we have looked to the community that is loyal and familiar with Blabbermouth.net. Visitors include all types of music fans and a significant porition of the rock/metal industry that find value in the site’s content and reach. In this case we wanted to know how much support we could count on only from the grassroots. The “top down” strategy in our case would have been to max out our leads, max our existing client buys, and seek new clients externally. The “bottom up” strategy allowed us to listen to the community and listen we did.

Publicly the comments on Blabbermouth.net’s message board have been very insightful. Mind you, it didn’t help that it’s April 1st. Some called this out as a joke but in any event it helped generate some added buzz on the side.

The most important part of this experiment: we now have 7 great new clients and hopefully more will decide to be more aggressive in the digital marketing space–especially first timers.

The real trick to keeping this momentum going a la Barack Obama is to keep POW-ing our client base (a la Andy Nulman). We have to keep innovating and building new products to further complement the needs of Indie advertisers. Soon enough you won’t be seeing Classmates.com ads or Google Ads anymore. And that’s music to my ears.

Filed under: Fixion Clients, Case Studies, Publisher Side, Vertical Ad Networks, The Future, Music Industry, Leadership

Be First To Comment

This year, I’m getting an unusual amount of calls from other networks that want to sell advertising to my company Fixion Media. No need to remind them that I’m a network that specializes in selling advertising, not buying. This leads me to the simple conclusion that many companies are facing problems in filling their inventories.

Why? I believe because there are 80 billion web sites out there with far too many ad spots per page. As the global web population continues to grow, so does the volume of page views and ad views.

While many still claim that the online ad business is recession-proof, it will only be so to networks that focus on specific niche communities, interests, or site genres. “Channels” are too vague for horizontal networks to claim as targeting.

Nonetheless, it is clear that this year will be an over-the-top and aggressive experience in the ad world. This suits me fine. I suppose we’ll be able to better reflect about the losses and victories that are sure to follow.

Filed under: Vertical Ad Networks, The Future

Be First To Comment

I took the first day of 2008 to personally re-launch Fixion Media. (www.fixionmedia.com)

Imagine if you could re-launch your company or personal brand in an instant? I must admit, this isn’t the first time I adapt the future of my company to the increasingly globalized and technolocally-centric world. Second admission: it gets more enjoyable every time I do it. This is what life is about. If you can apply your learnings to actual life every couple of years, the world is bound to look peachy and progressive.

To a prosperous 2008. Happy new year!

(Stay tuned for excellent coverage on this blog and podcast in 2008 about marketing, advertising, business, politics, and more. My plate is full. Dine on it at your leisure.)

Filed under: Rich Media, Fixion Clients, Announcements, Press Releases, Publisher Side, Vertical Ad Networks, Fixion Media News, Mobile Advertising, Online Video, Video, The Future, Music Industry, Adtech Helios IQ, Artists, Wealth

Be First To Comment

I’m pleased to see savvy musicians like Matthew Ebel taking advantage of Feedburner’s RSS ad network:

I have come to understand that most music marketing campaigns are limited in range. In 2008, we are pushing our clients to adopt multi-pronged media plans that include the web, mobile, rss, video, and beyond. You’re definitely ahead of the game Matthew!

Filed under: Fixion Clients, Publisher Side, Vertical Ad Networks, Media Planning, The Future, Music Industry, Artists

Be First To Comment

While it took a while to reach this decision for reasons that I can’t yet divulge, I’m please to finally announce that Fixion Media has entered into a service agreement with Adtech. Specifically, we will be using the Helios IQ advertising platform to manage our network. While we are currently testing the platform, a full rollout is expected by or before January 1st, 2008.

Tis a perfect way to start a new year and I’m confident that our publishers and clients will appreciate the upgrade in our technology. Gone are the days of open source servers and self-monitoring. Adtech will manage the technical aspect so that we can focus on our core competencies as a network.

Last year Fixion Media served more than 300 million ad impressions. Next year we’re shooting for a billion.

Filed under: Rich Media, Fixion Clients, Announcements, Publisher Side, Vertical Ad Networks, Atlas, Fixion Media News, The Future, Measurement, Adtech Helios IQ

Be First To Comment