The amount of unsold advertising impressions are pushing on towards one trillion, says 5to1, a new startup focusing on fixing this surplus. They claim that right now the market is a push system, but ad networks selling the remnant ad space around the internet. David Koretz claims that these remnant sellers are in fact a cancer to publishers and ad purchasers alike.
5to1 knows that not all inventory is created equal. There is, and always will be remnant space, but there is also super premium space. Find what is in the middle, and what do you find? A large market with billions of impressions. 5to1 wants to change all of that by launching a new iTunes-like store for matching publishers and ads.
To begin with 5to1, you need to in fact begin with the inventory side of things. You take a size, a shape, and what ads you want to run (perhaps a different advertisement if a different sport team wins), and then run with it. Don’t like an ad? Take it down. Click no, and it is gone. No more debating with your remnant network, just pull the ad. “It’s like dating, you do not date someone that you do not want to, the same is for advertisements,” says the CEO (abrdiged).
The store itself is beautiful, with a bonanza of advertisements giving the publisher a new and unprecednented level of control over what is put on their site. The CEO points out that for smaller sites, price of the ad might not be the issue, but instead control over exactly what ad is displayed. If you have fewer dollars and a better advertisement, you might just take it.
5to1 will probably be taking a cut of the revenue, which is standard. 5to1 presents a pretty exciting prospect for any site that’s not quite bringing in the ad money.
