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Adcamo, the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company, relaunched yesterday as an advertising platform. Previously, the company was an ad network unto itself using the same technology that it now leverages for publishers and other ad networks. By doing that, Adcamo can focus on improving its technology and also function as a gatekeeper (Google is also a gatekeeper on advertising, which made them rich).
Background advertising has never been touched before (except MySpace to some extent) and Adcamo patented this technology (patent pending, actually) and empowers others to use it. That means publishers who want to sell their background as ad space can now use Adcamo’s technology to manage this. The company has also released an API that ad networks and agencies can use to integrate into their own systems or software.
Their platform not only offers features that can be found in a standard ad platform (create campaigns, track clicks, impressions, view details, similar to Google AdWords or OpenX platforms), but also offers a unique feature: TBC (Time Before of the click). This metric measures the time from page load to when the user clicks on an ad, which indicates how effective an ad is: the earlier a user clicks on an ad, the more effective that ad is.
They offer three background ad formats:
–tileable background (the image stretches to fill the entire background and moves as you scroll up and down (frankly, I don’t like this format because it can ruin the design of a web page and make it look amateurish… check out MySpace pages, and you get the idea).
–pillar (the image stays on top of the background and when you scroll down the background image disappears towards the top – I think this is the best background ad format so far. It’s not that intrusive and certainly doesn’t mess up too much the design of a web page; actually it merges with the design trends of the last era).
–projection (In this case, the background image is in a fixed position, so when you scroll, the content also scrolls, but not the background image – this is a compromise between the two options above.)
These three formats are also clickable (yes, you can see the background ad but you can also click on it).
These background ad formats will make publishers and ad networks/agencies carefully choose the banners they use for their campaigns. Publishers will want banners that won’t mess up their website/page design and also give them a nice reward. Ad networks/agencies will likely work with advertisers to create banners that don’t interfere too much with the design of a website. Banners are sometimes linked to the background image, so whatever is displayed in the banners will also appear in the background image. But sometimes they aren’t, so the background image and banners can be separate but complement each other.
Now, the only thing left to test is whether the background advertising will take off. I am pretty sure many users are very annoyed by pop-up ads, under-ads, layered ads and interstitial ads, so I think you have a good chance.
Will background ads bother them too? (and by the way, for now there is no way to block background ads like there are ways to block pop-up and pop-up ads).
If users accept this type of advertising (as they did with text ads), then Adcamo could be quite successful as a business.
What do you think as a user (publisher or advertiser)? Do you see Adcamo gaining this potential market? (I’m pretty sure the competition will start to show up, perhaps using other variations on this theme.)