Infolinks Introduces In-Text Permission Advertising

Infolinks launches the first and only self-service In-Text Advertising Marketplace today, enabling brands to create targeted campaigns in minutes, and delivering them across 250 billion web pages to reach over 350 million unique visitors monthly.

In-Text Advertising, the next iteration of Google Adwords which displays contextually relevant ads in a bubble when double-underlined links are moused-over, has a higher average CTR than traditional search advertising, the company says. They claim real-time contextual targeting matches advertisements to website content at the moment the reader is most engaged and receptive, and revealed only when the consumer opts-in.

We spoke with Tomer Treves, CMO of Infolinks.

You say, “our service is an advertiser's dream come true." Please elaborate.

Let's say you prepare for a trip to Spain and read about its history in Britannica.com. The article has many links that don't disturb the flow of reading, including double-underline links that you recognize as Infolinks links. But then, the double-underline link on the word Outside Madrid interests you, and you actively choose to bring the mouse and hover over it.

At this point, a small bubble would appear with an ad to a nice boutique hotel outside Madrid. If this does not interest you, the mouse is moved away, the bubble disappears in an instant, and you continue reading. If it does interest you, you simply click. But it's not simple at all... on your way to the hotel's landing page, you have actively chosen to get exposed to the ad and then click on it.

The advertiser did not pay on arbitrary exposure, but for a willing visitor. This is the holy grail of advertising - real permission advertising, and it explains the high conversion rates and the smiles on advertisers' faces.

How does your brand differ from competitors like Flite, Kontera, Vibrant?

It seems that our technology, which is much newer than our competitors, yields publishers and advertisers better results, and it reflects well in objective parameters, like Google's Trends:

It's no surprise Google prefers Infolinks, because other networks use old technology that, among other things, slows down website's performance, which is a big no-no in our fast-paced world. Also, the Infolinks technology advantage is clear when looking at how advertisers interact with the network. With the new Infolinks marketplace, advertisers can set up a campaign in less than five minutes and start measuring results immediately.

What's been the biggest challenge in developing in-text ads and selling them in to users and advertisers?

Change. People take time to accept change and the advertising industry is not different. We've seen this cycle before with every new type of advertising. Remember when ads on TV began? At first people were against it until they understood it finances better content for free. It was the same with radio and with the first ads on Web. In-text ads also received their amount of objection at first, but now it's becoming "standard," so the challenge is to add it as a standard unit in the media mix in each and every online advertising plan.

What's next for social media/contextual ads?

Less ads. Believe it or not, I'm not a big fan of ads. When I try to read an article, I don't enjoy jumpy animated ads and expanding banners. But with the efficiency of Infolinks ads that allow people to read with so much less interruption, and open ads only when they are truly interested, publishers will learn that they can reduce the amount of ads to improve user experience. The new Infolinks self-serve marketplace is a big part of this revolution.

Fewer ads, self-served, opted-in -- sounds like a win/win revolution.