I don’t make any advertising or revenue decisions around here, that’s left to our CEO Heather Harde. But I’m nervous about our ad partner Federated Media, which supplies about a third of our total revenue. They’re going through layoffs (I read this on their blog), and payments from them have dipped substantially in recent months (which isn’t a surprise given market conditions).
We’ve stuck with Federated Media through the years, despite our love/hate relationship with them.
But as advertising dollars become harder to come by, staying with Federated becomes more costly. The biggest issue is that as a market leader among tech blogs, we end up subsidizing others. An example – an advertiser comes to us with, say, a $100,000 spend. They are referred through to Federated, who if they make the sale gets a 40% cut. That cut is fine. But what Federated then does is spread that $100k around to many different blogs. In the end we may only see a small fraction of it spent on TechCrunch. This works in our favor as well when leads come in from other blogs. But given how much higher profile we are than many of the other blogs in the Federated network, a disproportionate share of leads comes in through us.
In effect, we’re subsidizing our competition. As ad dollars become more scarce, the effect of that subsidy is more pronounced.
These and other reasons led Digg, GigaOm and others to leave the Federated Media network. Are we next? That’s Heather’s call. But we’ll be sure to let Federated Media know what we’re thinking via a blog post, the same way they delivered their news today.
Set up you own friggin ad network. Serve all the smaller blogs, pass them 75%.
Not knowing anything about your financials, it seems to me that TC is high profile enough to support its own ad sales team. Why not just bring everything in-house and slap up AdSense?
about a third of our revenue is from direct ad sales.
Mike,
I’m not privy to the contract between TC and FM but I suspect that they only sell the impressions that you send to them.
If that’s the case, the solution to your predicament is pretty simple:
Automate your entire ad sales process.
Not just 125×125 square buttons but the whole thing. Whatever you can’t sell, send it to FM (or whomever your next partner is).
From my vantage point, FM provides two things that benefit TC:
1. Access to a broader pool of advertisers – esp. the large agencies from Madison Av.
2. An automated self-service system – payments, ad management, reporting etc.
Whilst it may be prohibitively expensive to build out your own sales team to achieve (1), I think you can provide (2) relatively easily.
Hire a couple of developers to build it or use an off-the-shelf white-labeled self-service system like Trafficspaces, Adready, or even one of the Wordpress plugins (on second thoughts, the Wordpress plugins might not be up to scratch).
“about a third of our revenue comes from ad sales”
I assume that most of these sales are for ad campaigns in the “> $5000″ range. By rule of thumb, there is potentially a third of your revenue that is in the “< $5000″ range that is being left on the table.
Understandably, your direct ad sales team/person needs to focus on the bigger tickets but with an automated self-service system, you need not give half of your revenue to Google and FM.
Just my two cents.
Mark
Trafficspaces.com
So when you start off as a small fry, join an ad network because there’s no way you can do so well by your own damn self.
When you become a market leader, time to cut the cord and branch out on your own as you have now begun to subsidize other small fries.
Interesting. Certainly makes good business sense.
Eric,
Could’nt agree with you more mate!
Not a bad idea. What do you say, Michael…or Heather.
Also, does Heather ever comment on TC?
“They are referred through to Federated, who if they make the sale gets a 40% cut. That cut is fine.”
That is not fine. You are claiming you are doing all the heavy lifting, therefore you should not be giving up 40% to Federated. Perhaps you need to cut that in half.
Tell them you want 80% or you’ll make a post on your blog and you’ll also undermine your CEO in a blog posting. Ooops, you have
LOL
Yeah… there’s a fundamental problem in negotiating lower commission rates with ad networks because that provides networks with an economic incentive to sell ads on other sites in the same market.
For example if Federated only received 20% commission for ads sold on TC but 40% from ads sold on all of their other tech sites, where do you think they would place the majority of the ads? Pretty simple equation
Interestingly, Revver is down yet again and I have switched to Blip.tv as a result… I had a great relationship with them, as Michael has with FM but they dropped the ball one too many times.
Start your own ad network Michael, this is an opportunity to shine for you and your companies.
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
jon, stop sniffing arringonton’s panties. haha.
I’m looking for a new ad network too, I get a few million visits/year since 2006. Email me at pj@pjbrunet.com, I’m only using Adsense now and I don’t have time to negotiate with advertisers, I have enough to do writing content, code, working on other projects.
Setting up his own ad network isnt the issue here. Currently someone must be selling ads for techcrunch because they have all those 125 ads. However, with the slots they are CPM ad slots, in which takes a huge amount of time and sales team to maintain. Plus you need an expert to run the ad server. Is it worth Techcrunch running their own ad network? No!!
However, with regards to finding another network, things to me seem very limited at the moment. There are only a certain number of ad networks out there that actually offer decent rates.
Run your own ads and quit losing 40% of your potential revenue. Morons.
Managing their own sales team could quite easily end up costing them more.
Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.
Agreed.
40% is a ridiculously high amount! Your brand is attracting the 100k spender, not FM. Your doing all the hard work and you easily pass up 40% to have FM manage the campaign? it’s a bunch of codes anyway with two sales guys in the back.
You guys need your own network. bring in digg and om and venturebeat and together you all benefit from a top tier ad system
No kidding – it doens’t take a rocket scientist to set up your own ad network – then keep all the profits! I’ve done it on my site, and have plans to even roll out a geocoded version that targets based on user location. Now, I’m no Techcrunch – my ads go for a sliver of what yours do, but at least I keep 100% of the little money I do make
Passive aggressive much?
where’s the passive part? this is direct communication, cc’ing the Internet.
sounds like its time to call rubicon project.
I appreciate the transparency, but it seems like direct communication could have been better served with an email or telephone call with an account manager. The whole cc’ing the Internet seems a bit passive aggressive, especially given the last sentence of your post. That being said, if Federated isn’t meeting business goals, switch it up.
Great call for bids – should companies email you and Heather directly or just post terms in the comments section here?
anon, you don’t get it, though. Why contact an account manager directly, when THIS way creates ad impressions as a win-win for both TC and FM. Michael is the second smartest guy you know, and you know it.
so where did that 57.5M go? How did they ever raise so much money?
Hey Mike, don’t worry. We’re actually getting stronger in the kind of business we bring to you.
Hey John. One question – are you saying in your blog post that you’re moving out of display ads?
Sounds as if your relationship with John is much like the one between Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart: in Jeff’s words, “Rod and I have a love/hate relationship: he loves me, and I hate him.”
In any case, welcome to the wonderful world of strategic tech-biz alliances, where the same guys can be 1) your partner in marketing or development, 2) your customer, 3) your vendor, and/or 4) your competitor.
If you’d been around for the past 30 years like me, you’d have known this…and perhaps have a somewhat higher BTQ (Betrayal Tolerance Quotient), e.g., DEMO isn’t “out to get you,” either.
Peace/Love/Dove~jkatt
You might miss out a lot of advertising opportunities from companies who rely primarily on the discretion of networks to handle placement of their web-based advertising.
If you truly believe that you have enough Advertisers and that you’re subsidizing other blogs, develop your own ad platform (openx based?) and serve your own ads. Put excess inventory on Ad Exchanges.
Read this from 2005. History repeats itself again and again.
http://web.arch.../blog.php?id=26
Mike
You should sell your own ads. each of your indexed page has a unique value and you should be able to monetize it with branding banner and text ads. The way you are showing ‘Featured’ on the right side. Also syndicated your content as an excerpt to other sites that will bring in more links, SEO and traffic. We have developed this system and if interested let us talk. thank you tomv 516 655 4317
who would you switch to? or would you just start selling the ad space yourself?
and why can’t you just work out a referral fee with federated?
I have to agree with most of the comments in so far – do it yourself. As we look ahead it’s just going to get worse for these types of companies. Bail now before it’s tooooooo late.
Hey Mike, no, it’s not that we’re not going to sell display, it’s that without integrated programs and more value add, display alone is not a smart play, in my mind. Ad networks (all display, no context) average less than $1 CPMs. We are focusing on CM, which uses display as distribution, but not as the end all be all.
John, the reality is that you are just an ad network with very little technology repping some decent sites.
Getting the Arringtons and Om Malik’s to go along with site sponsorships and ridiculous “value adds” will prove costly and inefficient.
Sooner or later, Arrington will get wise and run it all himself, leaving you and your confederate money out in the cold.
You lads need to discuss this in private. Michael’s throwing a public tantrum, but get this: When you stop playing The Game, The Game is over.
He’s got some growing up to do.
LOTS.
This is tantamount to public bullying, all-the-while eliciting your competitors to do him a better deal. I’m sure you’ve figured this out.
You’ve got an online empire that does NOT have to rely on him, any more than Mister Gates’ ultimate future relied on Big Blue.
In both cases, “it was fun (????) while it lasted.” But right away, the first time I saw the Federated website, I knew that you were building the online equivalent that Billy Ziff, et al., did with paper publishing back in the day.
Go do it. Be fruitful and multiply.
MA’s arrogance will always be his downfall.
sigh~jk
Mike, you’re paying people to work for you. You’ve got to get a handle on this and do direct ads. You write about technology, i.e. OpenX, Google Ad Manager, etc., so you should be able to set up direct ads with little to no cost. Figure out the Chinese editorial wall if you need to, but this is the biggest no-brainer in the history of earth.
Ever tried to sell your own ads? Easier said than done there Preston.
If you wanted to negotiate a new contract you should have just called FM
exactly , next thing you know somebody from TC will be getting a divorce via a blog post , this really is not the right way to do biz at all
I second these guys. As a business owner; there are enough stresses in dealing with partners, revenue, etc. To blatantly call out a partner and include your CEO in it… is ballsy. If you worked for me; you would make the next round of layoffs. Seriously… just not appropriate and extremely juvenile. Makes me think TechCrunch bloggers are a bunch of 19 year olds trying to change a business they know nothing about. And to quote you; “I don’t make any advertising or revenue decisions around here”… I say; There is a reason for that.
Yes, and the blog will have open comments for friends and family.
you said the advertiser comes to you saying he wants to spend 100k on TC network, right? and then you send him to FM.
why dont that advertiser repeat these words to FM guys, that he wants to spend all those 100K on TC network?
publicly discussing how TC can maximize its revenues is clearly misplaced and probably not the real reason for this post. if anything it gives the impression of lacking strategic vision.
love FM, hate FM, go your own way, but don’t ask your readership.
I didn’t ask.
Michael Arrington said:
> I didn’t ask.
Michael Arrington said:
>Is It Time To Switch Ad Partners?
>by Michael Arrington on January 16, 2009
I think you did ask.
Exectly
Syed
Michael, you obviously haven’t read the latest proposed W3C spec. When answering a certain type of question, you need surround the text w/ the “rhetorical” open and closed tags. Example:
Am I a dumb-ass for asking if this is a rhetorical question?
Nice way to make a post that says pitch me why we should change ad networks signal out to all the ad networks so that they bring there a game without having to do the shopping yourself.
way to use the site to your own advantage for once. I am sure you guys got 30 emails already from other networks promising a lesser cut for the same service.
* Don’t do an exclusive with Federated, let them compete with you managing your own campaigns, or other vendors where it’s likely Federated will wither away.
* Don’t refer business to Federated unless you get a cut of the entire referral. Bonjour Capitalism.
* Does anyone ever click-through an ad from Federated? Historically, they place mind-numbing ads that operate in the periphery of our brains and we resent them
* Go after some interesting advertisers — you have an eclectic but interesting/consumer Readership who care about more than wrinkly old hosting deals (we’d never buy off an ad anyway), but it’s hard to believe you can’t nab some auto ads (video) or even Beta test the best interactive campaigns for a range of Brands.
* In a pissing match for arrogance, who would win, Techcrunch or Federated? Who cares? We’d all have a more entertaining time rooting for Techcrunch because you’d engage with irreverance — dump the dull ads — spice up your life.
Maybe you guys should hire someone to help set up an in-house ad network or maybe scale up the one you’ve got going on here.
Ahem, Ahem, cough, cough.
This post is a perfect example of why Techcrunch is nosediving.
Unprofessional, ulterior-motivated, and unrelated to the topic the website purports to cover.
A while back Mike’s personal bitching would be posted on crunchnotes but these days techcrunch is his personal whipping stick.
I agree and concur.
Grow up TechCrunch… Welcome to the real world of business.
CrunchNotes hasn’t had an update since June. But then again, there’s no ads on CrunchNotes, and 142 comments here. I don’t think CrunchNotes’ hits/unique visitors carry over to TC. Follow the money, as usual.
Mike, I hear your point about subsidizing other blogs, but I think the larger point is that the display pie is shrinking for everyone.
Which is why, from my reading of John’s post, they are going to step up to the opportunity of conversational marketing.
Why not partner with them on that?
Yes, you can serve up your own ads, as several people here have suggested, but doing conversational marketing will take a good partner.
And how much more could TC make from that approach than it does now?
I currently work in publishing and we do most of this process in-house. So, while it seems daunting at first, the logistics are relatively simple when compared to other technology and workflow implementations.
Start small, maybe with one or two ad positions, then if the response/revenue is enough move to a full self-service model.
Short term, low risk / cost approach:
1. Implement an ad serving platform (probably Google Ad Manager to cut costs initially)
2. Contract with an outside sales person and pay them on commission… probably around 15%-25%
3. Move one of your staff members to work as an ad manager, processing ads.
This is obviously, IMHO
Thanks!
Troy
I am actually surprised that a popular inventory like yours that has very valuable visitors doesn’t have its own ad management platform and ad sales team
Going direct is very easy to say but not as easy to do. That’s the reason companies like FM, Glam, and a hundred others exist. Selling ads direct requires a whole other skill set that most startups and blogs don’t have and likely cannot afford. In addition to sales and having to replace the feet on the street that a network brings, you also have to worry about ad ops, reporting, collecting, client management, etc. So it’s not as simple as saying “gee we would like to stop paying that 40%” because you’re going to have to pay it one way or the other.
Bryan, nicely said and right on the mark
Agreed. The big pockets also don’t like to work with a long list of publishers or networks, they’d rather do a large buy with a team that can execute the campaign and meet their reach goals.
John Battalle is a wind bag. Federated is a rep firm, not a tech company. I’ve never considered them to be a serious ad company despite the “dumb” dollars raised along the way.
easy.
Yo stone. Are you going to call me back about that traffic I asked about?
I have four websites currently being repped by FM (Modojo.com, Destructoid.com, Gamersyde.com, and GoNintendo.com). We’re fairly happy. We flirted heavily with another network that courted us when our FM contract was up last month, but we ultimately renewed, and I think we made the right choice.
The fact is I’ve worked with many, many ad repping firms over the years, and FM 1) makes us more money, 2) has kept us more plugged in with what’s going on, and 3) has more pleasant, knowledgeable employees than any of the others.
Mike… you’re so dramatic, sometimes.
FM makes it EXTREMELY easy for the sites they represent to follow up on leads themselves. They literally have a whole self-serve platform set up you can point ad buyers to, and if they place an ad buy, #1 it doesn’t get split with a half-dozen other sites and #2 FM doesn’t take it’s 40% split – it takes 10% for serving the ads.
Well said. So dramatic, Mike. So dramatic.
I say, make your own ad agency and leave all others
love the potent use of post-as-negotiation.
Grass isn’t Greener {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/YOr0KCrhuY_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Grass isn’t Greener ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/E3X1GbosPc”}}}
One word – AdBrite – http://www.adbrite.com/
Agree with eeew. Adbrite is simply disgusting. I can understand why someone without a choice would adop them, but techcrunch?
No way.
eeeeeewwww…
As an FM publisher, I can say that we’re very happy working with FM. Due to the highly cyclical nature of advertising markets, it’s a tough environment for everyone. But FM is a thought leader in the space and focusing their business on engaging audiences and advertisers in a way that adds value for everyone — and that ends up benefiting their publishers’ bottom line. I’m sorry to hear the news about FM’s layoffs, but will be anxious to work with them even closer during these tough times.
Managing your own ad network may work long term, but it may distract from the overall mission of the site, and result in a lesser product.
Also, who says that TC has the right culture to do ads better than somebody else? Especially in this down economy, do you really want to hire people for a function that you aren’t experienced in?
An alternative is to keep outsourcing ads, but slowly start to introduce your own inventory. This allows you to get your feet wet, but not disrupt your revenue stream.
Dude, I wrote my ad system in a weekend all by my lonesome. Complete with tracking, CTR’s, etc. It isn’t difficult, and is DIRECTLY in line with the mission of the blog: to generate revenue.
Some of you people just don’t get it. The technology is the easy bit and if it all it took was setting up your own ad system we’d all be billionaires. Picking up the phone and selling the ads takes time, experience and networks of contacts built up over many years. Employing people to do this isn’t cheap. At least when you give an ad network a fixed commission you know where you stand. Capiche?
One would think that selling Techcrunch ads would be a pretty easy sale with a ton of incoming leads. Why don’t you flirt with the self-serve option like Mr. Justin Davis suggested a few comments up.
Michael,
FM’s biggest problem is:
1. The categories they serve- Largely Entertainment, News, Tech, and heavily Blogs.
2. A small % is non-display, brand, conversations
3. Needs Ad-Network Remnant Ads to backfill
The issues stem from the ad categories they are going after are very heavily hit in the downturn- tech, finance, etc. Look at CBS/Cnet, NYT and others- all down 10-20% in ad sales
With Ad Networks at $1 CPM, and having no technology, FM is having a hard time convincing advertisers of their value, so they have to turn to something else, else all they can sell in $1 CPM’s
Not many options for TechCrunch as advertisers don’t have the bandwidth to buy smaller, niche, quality sites like this one, they like reach.
Will be very tough for FM and their publishers the next 2-3 quarters at least.
Am I reading this correctly? You are saying that because they spread any given ad buy among many sites, they are cheating you?
Anyone, please correct me if I am not getting the point.
Yay. Bring on the snake oil salesmen!
That was meant to be a general comment, not a reply to Ben
@Michael Arrington
I could set up your ad serving, handle your sales, handle your network relationships, pitch TC to agencies and planners and build out our own network.
And I’d be happy do it for a lot less than FM. Hell, I will do it for FREE just to prove that Federated Media is nothing more than a rep firm.
Perhaps it’s time to consider an ad relationship with Glam???
And then the idiots come in with the glam talk.
Jacob, i wish i could reach through my computer and slap you.
i’ll wait in line.
Why don’t you just hire your own sales team? That’s the only way to make real money.
All the money is direct sales. Always has been always will.
There was a mistaken assumption on the Internet that led people to think because there is the opportunity for networks to sell your ad space for you that that was better. TV and print never fell for this premise.
Yes it’s more work to sell your own inventory, but it’s also very wasteful to give 40%-60% commission to your ’sales team’
I’m amazed how many tech companies have simply left that money on the table, because they thought it was expensive to hire a sales person (whose paycheck pays for itself.)
But this will be the big shake out year. No more rising tide to lift all boats.
If clarification is needed I meant all the money in publishing is in direct sales.
Michael – this is the plight of sites that are big enough to command demand/interest but dont want the EBIDTA drain of a full throttle salesforce. At some point, you have to decide which brand of heroin you want.
If i were you, i’d consider joining one of the growing ad organizations like Glam, which i hear was up 200% 2008/2007 and off to a solid 2009. You’d fit very well in their Brash business.
Actually I hear Glam is running $1 CPMs lately because they don’t have inventory either.
Besides, Glam is a women’s ad network, and TechCrunch isn’t a chick site.
Wendy – Glam introduced Brash, mens network last year, and it has grown to over 20 million uniques. No chickies there!
I am on the Glam Network, and can verify that almost all of the ads Glam have run to date are high CPM’s for me. Glam does offer GlamX as an option for Publishers for below the fold, secondary ads, is a new offering to allow publishers to get help on non premium ads space and is a great new service. Glam also offers us technology support, GlamTV, and perks.
Lot of long term happy publishers on their network- so Michael should seriously consider Brash men network. They will seriously hurt FM and others as they expand men.
All of these things are cyclical in a way. The online ad biz will come roaring back and everyone will act as though they couldn’t remember 2008 just like they can’t remember 2005.
TV is losing ad revenue
Paper is losing ad revenue
Radio is losing ad revenue
Advertisers will continue to buy ads
Do the math. The ad revenue will go back up.
- Curtis
http://ShipItOnTheSide.com – Build a software startup as a side job.
I buy for a Fortune 500 brand on TechCrunch because of Federated Media. This wouldn’t happen if you were a standalone property and you certainly wouldn’t be getting the $20 CPM’s that I spend there today. By buying with FM I am able to diversify my spend and reach different targets. TechCrunch doesn’t have enough reach on its own. Via Federated we are able to reach the highly engaged target audience we are looking for.
MediaPlanner: Sure, but Arrington said the advertiser came to him first, and TC referred it to FM. Ie, the advertiser was willing to spend all $100K on TC.
There are several technologies (free ones) that TC can use to serve those ads. Michael, you just gave that money away, with no one to blame but yourself.
Arrington’s example is a hypothetical and not a realistic one at that. Anyone who’s been in media sales knows that if you are relying on incoming leads for your revenue stream you wont get very far. If you want to produce a substantial amount of advertising revenue you have to have an experienced sales staff go out and proactively find $100,000 media opportunities.
Lol. Mediaplanner NYC is John Battelle.
Good one.
$20? Wow, that seems insane right now.
how much did john b pay you. =)
Kind of suprised you do not have your own sales team. You should have an all-star and a Jr. selling for you right now with FM filling your remnant.
The ad networks simply work off of volume, and they spread it out among off of the sites in their network. They could care less about a single publisher that maybe makes up 2% of their inventory.
After reading John’s blog post, it’s clear they are looking at creating their own properties to use as the network anchor (to get the buy) and then use the other sites in the network for the inventory.
Go to the agencies direct, or the marketers, skip the ad networks…
To: Tuyen
AdSense?? Don’t make me laugh! AdSense will produce like something on the order of $0.50 eCPM (if you’re lucky) and fill the site with crappy text ads from weight-loss and “Looking for XYZ? Find it here!” type of sites.
I don’t know what Federated pays TC but I am guessing it’s substantially more than $1 CPM. AdSense will not be able to compete with that.
Why not sell your own ads directly? I’m sure you could even charge less and make more because you wouldn’t have to be paying Federated for their cut.
For a small fee, I’d gladly tatoo your logo on my ass
$10?
how much for the forehead?
I’ll tattoo your logo on my arm for 30k.
Your in the ballpark there sport. Send the money by Western Union and I’ll do it.
Why are we even having this conversation on the internet? Did we all just get elected to the TC Board? Who cares?
Michael
You should sell your own permanent text link and banner ads and banner-text hybrid ads on a CPP – Cost Per Placement per month way. Your google indexed inventory is worth millions of dollars. Do it contextually and we can help you with that. See the section ‘Featured’ on the top right. That is the way to sell CPP ads. Charge them anywhere from $25 a month to $100 a month per ad.
Just get Google Admanager. We use it and its great. No revenues to share and it maximizes profits. You can set it so it competes with Adsense. If you have private ads you specify what CPM you sold them for, and Adsense competes in real-time, if for that particular user it will pay you more, it will and show and Adsense ad, other your private ads take priority. When you run out of private ads, it defaults back to Adsense again.
There is also that Rubicon Project you wrote about too a couple of times.
Michael,
90% of the ads I see on Techcrunch were bought on the ad exchanges, not sold by your ad network partners. I know, because I am buying Techcrunch through the exchanges.
Here is a screenshot of the ads I see on this exact page. http://www.tods.../techcrunch.jpg
cheers,
tod
Please stop telling Mike to hire his own sales force. It’s a bad decision…media buyers don’t negotiate with single sites unless they reach an audience that is orders or magnitude larger that TechCrunch’s.
One solution could be to build your own vertical ad network using Adify to competes with the tech blog category in FM, but that means that folks like Om and Matt ended up giving you the 20-40% as opposed to John which isn’t ideal and you’d still have to build out the sales team and a big enough network to be able to make plans as a standalone buy which would be a tough even.
Stick with John, renegotiate your terms and focus on writing more posts like this that actually get readers interested. Who wants to run an ad sales team in this environment?
Jason,
This simply is not true. TechCrunch is large enough to get buys directly. The biggest mistake he is making is not getting infront of the marketers directly.
actually techcrunch site looks great with AdBlocker Plus. It’s clean and the site has no ads.
download this client then look at Techcrunch and other sites. It’s amazing.
https://addons....efox/addon/1865
No kidding.
Wowzer. No more garbage on page. If TC ran one really interesting ad, rather than 12 annoying visuals, I’ll remove Ad Blocker, til then, it rocks.
I do believe that TC could get some great (high paying) ad campaigns from Agencies who are looking to reach early-adopters etc. And, even try out new interactive and social conversation campaigns. This would be a terrific audience to test with — since they’d get feedback!