Infolinks Launches

Today is a big day for Infolinks.  We are announcing In³, our new platform, three new ad units, a new logo and a new web site!  Our aim is to address some of the biggest challenges in display advertising: banner blindness and declining engagement rates.  Unfortunately, these are self-inflicted wounds.  Our industry has become so effective at creating and monetizing ad space. We have scaled to the point where users have gotten used to seeing irrelevant ads by the truckload.  Thousands of times a month, users see ads that don't speak to what they are doing at that moment, and each ad reinforces a tragic message: ignore me.  As a result, users now don't even see the ads.  Their eyes wander down a page and instinctively ignore the traditional places where ads appear.  That's why click through rates have plummeted over the past 12 years from 2% to .1%.

Well, we're going to change that.  In³ analyzes one trillion words per month in real time, across 100,000 active sites in 128 countries.  We determine intent at a keyword level, and then render ads in non-traditional locations on the page in order to increase relevance and decrease banner blindness.  

Here are some links to learn more. Our new site is at Infolinks.com, of course, so check it out.  You can also read our press release.  I wrote two blog posts: one on banner blindness for iMedia Connection and one on saving the ad supported Web at MediaPost.  Additionally, AdExchanger published a very long Q&A with me.  Here's more coverage of our announcement from WebSite Magazine, Biz Report and Advertisement Journal.  Laurie Sullivan from MediaPost also mentioned Infolinks in the top news article in Online Media Daily, which was centered around the new Facebook Exchange.

Since the initial launch, we've been speaking at conferences across the country.  Digiday published a link to a tech talk I gave at their Publishing Summit in Palm Beach on Oct 22.  Topic: A Cure for What Ails Display.  If you are in the industry and want to hear a 5 min summary of the biggest challenge facing online display advertising, give it a click.