Portfolio selling ads on other sites

Jordan Golson of The Industry Standard writes about how business magazine Conde Nast Portfolio is selling some of tis excess advertising on other Web sites.

Golson writes, “Portfolio is addressing this issue by using a program offered by Adsdaq, which will put cookies on Portfolio visitors web browsers and find out when they’re on other sites in the Adsdaq exchange system. Once that happens, Portfolio can offer those sites some of their advertising revenue, in exchange for the profits.

“If Portfolio has enough traffic to fill their advertiser demand, they keep it all for themselves. If not, they pick up remnant advertising from other sites and everybody makes money. Advertisers reach the right people, other sites get more money for their remnant ads, and Portfolio takes a cut.

“This is a whole new realm of advertising. Never before would a publication willingly send advertisers to possible competitors — or shift into what is basically a third-party ad sales position — that would only happen online. The system allows publishers to provide with advertisers with “targeted scale”, which seems like an oxymoron, but when you’re trying to sell high-end products to a lot of people, its what you need.”

Read more here.