Dave Morgan, TACODA’s founder and Executive Vice President of Global Advertising Strategy for AOL, just hit the nail on the head with his blog commentary on the stigma surrounding ad networks. He points out that the ad network brought a pork bellies commodity attitude to online advertising in the lean, post-bubble days when any revenue was good revenue. He goes on to point out that this is changing and bravely outlines a few solid reasons why. What drove this home for me was his conclusion that networks are going to have to continue to deliver solid value, with high-quality ads and rates, to begin to offer something that publishers will never be able to deliver on their own because of their focus on the content. He highlights the need for networks to deliver effectiveness over efficiency. Bravo. This is really the crux of the situation and a very real opportunity for ad networks to step up to the plate. And this is exactly where LucidMedia is strongest, in bringing increased effectiveness—and the proof report down to the impression-level to prove it—instead of just new efficiencies through scale, technology and focus. We saw this void back in 2004 when we launched ClickSense, our robust contextual engine, and have recently applied it to lifting the effectiveness of our customer’s campaigns in the LucidMedia Network. This new effectiveness is inherent in our deep categorization which puts publisher’s content into our 13,000+ industry categories to allow for far more granular targeting than has ever been available in the past. When publishers can sell their inventory with 6 levels of categorization to pinpoint the meaning of their content there is a very real lift in conversions. This assumes all the underpinnings are in place like engaging creatives and streamlined landing pages but when it all comes together there is a tangible return. Hopefully other ad networks will do the same and bring real increases in effectiveness to the table in the future and begin to erase the negative connotations around the ad networks.