AdTaily, the self-service advertising network, has launched its global marketplace for advertisers. It builds on top of the company’s existing self-serve ad widget for publishers which lets them sell ads direct, to offer a central place for advertisers to buy ads across the AdTaily network. Interestingly, however, the marketplace – just like the self-serve widget – will be commission-free, for now at least.
AdTaily, which says it’s already making money from its Polish operations, is clearly still gunning for scale internationally – its publisher base outside Poland remains small – and keeping ads purchased through its marketplace commission-free is, potentially, one way to do that. And when AdTaily does begin charging, it says it plans to remain hyper-competitive compared to similar long-tail ad networks.
That said, there’s a danger that this bait-and-switch tactic won’t go down too well with publishers once AdTaily decides to turn on the monetization taps. But then again, if the marketplace is drawing in enough new business for publishers, it likely won’t be such a problem.
Just like the self-serve widget that individual sites install, the marketplace offers a single ad-unit (125×125) but instead of targeting only one publisher, advertisers can pick a mix of sites in bundles of five, ten, or twenty, whichever their advertising budget allows. And for publishers, it’s another shop window for their wares.