Website
www.burstmedia.comAbout
BURST! Media is one of the premier advertising networks in the industry for speciality content web publishers. It delivers more than 2-3 billion impressions every month and has over 2,000 web publishers in its network of websites. Founded in 1995, BURST! has survived the downturn in the internet advertisement industry primarily because of the niche speciality targeted market that it caters to. The advertisers can choose from more than 20 content and audience channels and 477 sub-channels, for contextual targeting of their advertisments. BurstMedia uses its proprietory AdDesktop technology to deliver the ad creatives to the publishing websites.
Program Details
BURST! accepts only speciality content websites with at least 5,000 page views per month. The other rules for applying can be found at their website. Once accepted, it may take a few months for the publishing website to receive targeted advertisement. In the meantime, run-of-network advertisements are shown. The site is listed in the network's gallery of websites. Advertisers can choose the category or individual websites for their advertisement needs. BURST! also provides a survey code for publishers to add to their websites. The survey helps in determining the demographics of the web site's visitors and hence in signing up more advertisers.
The contract terms are 60% payout for 3 year exclusive, 55% for 1 year exclusive and 50% for non-exclusive month-to-month contracts. A non-exclusive contract is recommended because the default & non-sold advertisements can be transferred to another advertising network like FastClick.
Ad Formats & Rates
BURST! Media provides the following ad formats:
1. Standard 468x60 banners
2. Super 728x90 banners (in combination with 468x60)
3. SkyScraper (120x600) and Wide SkyScraper (160x600)
4. Cube (125x125)
5. Intrusive (Pop-under, Layer)
6. IntelliText (selective release)
Burst Media has plans to add new formats like EyeBlaster, Shoskeles Layers, Unicast Layers, Pointroll Layers in the recent future. The rates for the banner advertisements have suffered after the dot com downfall, and still very low. BurstMedia's rates are relatively superior and comparable to FastClick. However, their 50% commission takes away the major portion of that.
IntelliText, a product of Vibrant Media, is a new offering for BURST! publishers starting March, 2004 and is targeted for high traffic websites in technology, gaming, business & finance, automotive, and travel categories with high textual content (such as reviews and articles). IntelliText creates a relevant commercial link for matching keywords in the webpage's text, and displays a textual ad when a user scrolls over it.
Other
Burst Media uses one of the oldest technologies, which needs an overhaul. The current version of the code has two parts - one common code to be added to the top of a web page, and individual code for each type of ad format. The common code has to be added only once. Because of the dependent nature of the ad codes, it poses problem if delivered by an ad serving script, where the number of BURST! ads on a page may vary. The future versions of the scripts (Version 2.0S) might help in overcoming some of the problems. The release date has not been set.
The member's administration panels are also old, with less than adequate statistics. The statistics only show the previous days results, but not on a daily basis. Statistics generated by Analog is shown for weekly reporting. FastClick provides an excellent administration area in this regard. However, the use of Akamai Technology by BURST! Media provides a nice geographical statistics and click through rates for the websites.
Summary
BURST! Media is considered one of the premier targeted outsourced advertisement network for speciality content websites with moderate traffic. The rates are not the best in the industry considering their 50% share. However, their ad serving technology combined with their experience in the industry will surely benefit any publisher in their network.
