Michael was first introduced to Kontera in 2007 while working with them at SmartMoney. In October, he became the newest member of the Strategic team where his focus will be on developing partnerships with premium publishers.

Michael grew up in northern New Jersey and attended the University of Maryland (he’s the third MD alum to work at Kontera).  Outside of the office Michael enjoys traveling, surfing, and spending time with family and friends.

What was your role at SmartMoney?

I first joined SmartMoney as their Director of Digital Advertising on the west coast before moving to New York in 2008 to become their Director of Digital Strategy.  In that role I worked as a liaison between ad sales, editorial, and marketing and was responsible for identifying new partnership opportunities with outside vendors.

What was the publication trying to do in terms of monetization and user value? What are the main factors that premium publishers take into account when choosing which monetization strategies to employ?

At SmartMoney’s core, the goal of the site is to be an empowerment tool that enables its users to make intelligent investing decisions.  In that same light, SmartMoney looks to attract and partner with advertisers that can deliver additional value to its audience through the products and services they offer.  These same principles carried over to the decision-making process when determining which vendors to partner with.  Of course, revenue potential was always heavily weighed, but keeping true to user intent was equally as important.  On some level there had to be a benefit to the users as well.  I would say most publishers fall into that same line of thinking when evaluating which vendors to work with.

Why did you look at In Text Advertising?

We first considered In Text Advertising after seeing that more publishers (large and small) began adopting the technology.  We also felt that we could have been doing more in terms of working with additional technology providers that could help to further monetize the site – be it with rich media, mobile, behavioral or In Text advertising.  Ultimately, we decided that In Text advertising was something we could test without dedicating a lot of time and internal resources.

Why did you choose Kontera?  What separated Kontera’s In-Text solution from other offerings on the market?

The decision to work with Kontera boiled down to a couple of key solutions that we didn’t find were offered from their competitors.  While the revenue was certainly an important motivating factor, we were more so impressed with Kontera’s hybrid unit and its ability to both deliver related content to our users and keep them engaged.  When we first evaluated in-text we did not realize it was something that could actually add to the user experience.  We also were excited about Kontera’s white label solution as it allowed our sales team to go to market with an additional product to sell to advertisers.

From your experience, what “words of wisdom” or recommendations do you have for publishers as they set out on their journey to grow their websites?

I believe the key to growing and sustaining a successful website lies first and foremost with audience engagement.  Does the site keep a constant dialogue going with its users and truly understand their intent?  More importantly, do they provide them with a reason to come back to the site on a daily or weekly basis?  If the answer is no, I don’t think it’s possible to succeed in the long run.  From a monetization standpoint, ad integration that is appropriate and introduced to an audience naturally is not only a good thing for the advertiser and publisher, but something that can end up being useful to the user as well.  At the end of the day, relevancy seems to be the key to keeping both users and advertisers happy (and publishers wealthier).

How did Kontera deliver for you over the years?

While I was with SmartMoney, Kontera provided us with a consistent revenue stream that we could count on month-to-month, as well as top-notch customer support.  We were always impressed with the proactive nature of Kontera’s publisher services team.  Good customer service was not something you could automatically expect from all vendors.

Why did you join Kontera and what is your role with the company?

As a former client and someone who understands and believes in the technology I felt that working at Kontera would be an exciting opportunity for me.  I also felt that I would be joining a great team and a company that was committed to success, while also having fun in the process.  As a part of the strategic team I am looking forward to establishing additional partnerships within the premium vertical and extending Kontera’s technology to the top properties on the web.

The time has come to officially announce the winners of our MVP Awards contest for the best blog posts describing Kontera success stories. We are excited to announce the winners who will each receive an Amazon Kindle: Randy Brown from Grownupgeek.com and Jason Caetano from techsquirt.com.

Randy is a “veteran” Kontera publisher and shares some great tips from his extensive experience; Jason is a new Kontera publisher who shared his outlook on starting out in the blogosphere and why Kontera is a natural fit for techsquirt.com.

Randy made a great point in how Adsense and Kontera make a good match: “Over the last 2.5 years… Kontera has earned right up with, and some times better than Adsense. Kontera has also performed better than other In-Text ad networks I have tested over the years. Those solid earnings combined with my own dedicated Kontera account manager that answers my questions and deals with any problems that arise (something you won’t get from Adsense) has kept Kontera on my “Best ad network” list.” Read Randy’s post>>

Jason described the importance of engagement and relevancy in online advertising and emphasized the added value Kontera In-Text brings to user experience: “Kontera helped me obtain my goals of earning revenue for my blog, not just by providing in-text advertising but providing relevant and engaging information… If you’re looking for simple and easy to use In-Text advertising program that is relevant to your content and users – I would look no-further then Kontera.” Read Jason’s post>>

Thanks everyone for your submissions, we enjoyed reading your success stories and congratulations to our winners. Enjoy your Kindles! If you didn’t win this time around check out our Triple Play program running until the end of the year.

We’re working on some great new offers for our publisher partners so be sure to stay tuned here, or by following us on Twitter and Facebook.

By Julie Baumgartner, Senior Director, Strategic Accounts

At Kontera, I’m usually out meeting with publishers, but when I’m in San Francisco, I donate my time to a non-profit called Shanti. I got involved when my friend, Maria, became the Director of Shanti’s LifeLines Breast Cancer Program. Maria was matched with a client, and I was moved to tears every time she told me about their weekly meetings, and how she was the only interaction her client had with anyone other than her doctors.

The client did not speak English, and her family lived out of state, so if it were not for Maria, this woman would have had no one to support her during her battle with breast cancer.

In February, I joined the Board of Directors of Shanti – right after a friend was diagnosed with Triple Negative Metastatic Breast Cancer at the age of 32.  Denise just moved to Hawaii to be with her family, as she goes through a second round of chemotherapy.  Gee Gee, another friend’s mother, was also diagnosed with breast cancer this Summer.  Gee Gee’s daughter relocated to Arizona almost immediately to be with her mom.  Whenever I reflect on what these women are going through, with friends and family rallying beside them, I cannot help but also think about Shanti’s clients, many of whom would be absolutely alone if it weren’t for LifeLines.  According to the statistics, 1 in 8 U.S. women (12.5%) will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.  It’s gut-wrenching.

Shanti enhances the quality of life, health and well being of people living with life-threatening illnesses.  Each year, they work with over 2,000 men and women facing the challenges of breast cancer or HIV/AIDS.  In many cases, Shanti is the one compassionate, loving presence for their clients during their greatest time of need.  Shanti’s 35th anniversary is this year, so please visit our website (www.shanti.org) to learn more!

Plus, other Kontera employees are also working with local non-profits.  Bryan Everett, EVP Strategic Development, was a table host at a breakfast for The Arc, which helps people with developmental disabilities lead a self-sufficient lifestyle.  Leilani Sanchez is a Board Member of Streetside Stories, which is focused on literacy and arts programs for Bay Area schools.  As a company, Kontera sponsored a family for Christmas last year through Compass Community Services, and earlier this year, we volunteered at the San Francisco Food Bank.
As the world debates the merits of President Obama winning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, I am reminded of someone who was nominated for the award five times, but never selected.  In the inspirational words of Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Have you heard?  Kontera is giving away Amazon Kindles through our MVP Rewards Program!
We wanted to take an opportunity to re-introduce our latest promotion:

Entering is simple and only requires presenting some of your Kontera In Text Advertising successes in a post on your site, and then shooting us an e-mail with the link to the post. You can be rewarded with a great prize!  Find all the details here.

We look forward to reading your post and shipping out your new Kindle. 

Hurry up and enter this contest as the deadline is October 31st – increase your chances to get a special Halloween treat from Kontera!

We are nearing the end of the year, and the fall season is when we traditionally see very strong revenues and some great campaigns across our network.

We want both our large and small publishers to benefit and win as well.

Kontera “Triple Play” — Three new ways for publishers to gain extra revenues between now and the end of the year.

1. Optimize for Revenues – Take Advantage of the biggest ad spending quarter of the year. Increase your revenues by implementing our Tips and Tricks to optimize Kontera across your sites. We provide some proven techniques that will help you maximize your earnings during the end of the year and holiday season.

   Learn More ->

2. MVP Rewards – Tell Us Your Kontera Success, Win a Kindle

   We want to hear from you! We’re always interested to learn more about the publishers in our network, their experience with Kontera In Text ads, and how Kontera is helping them. Send us a link to your post or story about your successes with Kontera and you will be entered to win one of several Amazon Kindles and gift certificates that we are giving away for the best submissions. All Our MVP winners will also be featured in Kontera’s all-star gallery series of blog posts.

   Learn More ->

3. Heavy-Hitters’ Special – If you regularly receive Kontera earnings of more than $1500 per month, then we should talk! Kontera can significantly increase your In Text Advertising earnings for the October through December timeframe. There is no better way to get additional end- of- year revenues. Simply send us an email to support@kontera.com with “Heavy Hitters Bonus” in the subject line, and our team members will follow-up to get you into this exciting program.

WIN A KINDLE!

We’re always interested to learn more about the publishers in our network, their experience with Kontera, and how Kontera is helping them.

Send us a link to your post or story about your successes with Kontera and you will be entered to win one of several Amazon Kindles and gift certificates that we are giving away for the best submissions.

All Our MVP winners will also be featured in Kontera’s all-star gallery series of blog posts.

Here are a few questions to get you started:

• What inspired you to start your website, blog, or latest initiative?
• How did you come up with the idea?
• When did you start using Kontera?
• How has Kontera helped you to attain your goals?
• What words of wisdom do you have for other web publishers or bloggers?
• What do you see for the future of your site or blog?

Send a link to your post to support@kontera.com with the subject line: “Kontera MVP”.

Deadline for entry is October 31st. Winners will be drawn by November 3rd and will be contacted via email and featured in an upcoming Kontera blog post. For more information visit the T&Cs page

Enter Today!

The biggest ad spending quarter is here! Increase your revenues by implementing our Tips and Tricks to optimize Kontera across your sites.  Follow these tips and tricks which will help you maximize your earnings during the end of the year and holiday season.

• More Page Views Yield Greater Revenues: Add Kontera tags to all pages and as many sections of your site as possible, to earn maximum revenues.
• Seasonal Relevance Wins: Having interesting content that is relevant for through October-December advertising pay dividends. Keep in mind the type of advertisers that spend during this time of year. For example, a holiday season shopping guide or thoughtful opinions on the latest automotive models will probably yield greater results than planning for next summer’s vacation. Having seasonally relevant and fresh content will increase coverage, CPC, and CTRs resulting in record busting eCPMs.
• Consider Changing Link Color: New color usually makes In Text links more prominent to your users resulting in higher CTRs and greater revenues.
• Use Zone or Filter Tags: Keep our analysis and links targeted to your content and away from outlying areas like headers, sidebars, footers, etc.
• Keep it Clean: Avoid producing content with profanity or sensitive topics as quality brands avoid this type of content and our technology screens the content.
• Revisit Maximum Link Parameters: Limiting links to 1, 2, or 3 per page can hinder CTR and prevent you from monetizing to your sites’ full potential.
• More Sites: The easiest way to make more money is to add more sites to the Kontera program.   If you have more sites then let us know and we will get you additional tags.

At Kontera, we can relate to the frustration of forgotten passwords, constant resetting, and the struggle to track and remember the countless login details for all of our frequently visited web destinations.

Protection is tight and web technology today allows for an ultra-secure browsing environment; still, many people are guilty of: failing to change their passwords regularly or recycling the same password through all of their accounts.

When establishing passwords, experts recommend considering the following tips:

• Use numbers, letters, and symbols

• Don’t use shared passwords

• Mind case-sensitivity requirements

• Avoid obvious sequences/patterns (1234,abc)

• Never keep your default password

• Change passwords every 4-6 weeks

The Kontera team reminds you that you can easily change your login password in the Publisher Center by clicking the “My Account” tab.  If you are an advertiser, your Advertiser Center password can be changed upon request- just contact your account manager.

We consider this as not only a great way to enhance your personal security, but also a great exercise to improve memory.  Of course, our Support Team is always happy to help should your password escape you, simply click “forgot password”, or let us know and we’ll gladly muster up a replacement right away.

You would never have guessed that it was storming outside based on the demeanor inside Andretti Racing this past Wednesday.  In NASCAR, the Andretti name is synonymous with Formula 1 racing, but in Atlanta it means basketball shooting contests, endless skee-ball duos, and 30 mile an hour turns on a premium indoor racing track.  Kontera and Moxie Interactive opened the forum for mid-week fun by spending the night kart racing, playing arcade games, and relaxing over the bartender’s choice drinks.

This was a great opportunity to step away from the desk and enjoy each other’s company – and believe me we sure did enjoy!  However it wasn’t all fun and games, everyone’s competitive spirit was in full gear on the race track as there were U2 tickets, helicopter tours, fine dining, and limo rides to be won.  Who knew this group could turn on the velocity so quickly?  It may be common industry protocol to enjoy post-work activities together, but rarely do the creative and competitive juices mix so well at such an event.

And now for the winners…..

First place winner Kara Carpentier, Sr. Account Executive for Garnier Fructis, took home two floor seat tickets to the upcoming U2 concert in October.

Kelli Travis, Sr. Media Planner for Verizon SMB, won a luxurious limo tour of Atlanta.

While Kara and Kelli may have been higher in the standings, Chris Sherrer, Media Coordinator for Verizon, was the big winner of the night. Chris’ business card was drawn and he walked away with a helicopter tour of Atlanta AND also snuck away with a 3rd place finish and dinner for two at a local five- star restaurant.

Congratulations to Kara, Kelli and Chris!

It is safe to say that when Moxie and Kontera get together for their next event, it may be hard to beat.

It’s exciting to see how fast new search and social media technologies become integrated in the www landscape.  As online explorers and consumers we are always thirsty for more innovation and for ways to improve and add interest to our ways of interaction.  Companies and Governments are utilizing these new technologies for their benefit and the motion of the web accelerates, no one wants to get left behind.  This week, we’ve come across some interesting stories on the topic that we’d like to share.

Bing grabs 10 percent of search market

According to a recently released Nielsen report, Bing search service is the fastest-growing U.S. search engine among the top 10!  Google, of course, stays on top with 64.6% share and other players in the top 10 included AOL Search in fourth place with 3.1% share and Ask.com Search with 1.7% share.  We also hear that Microsoft is planning to launch Bing 2.0, releasing even more new features.

Read Full article on cnet>>


Facebook, Twitter and Social Media Marketing

In recession-stricken times companies are increasingly (some say aggressively) pursuing social media marketing efforts. Social media is proving to be a more affordable way to promote products and services compared to traditional advertising.

Not surprisingly, Facebook and Twitter see the highest adoption rate in social media marketing while customer reviews rank No. 1 for increasing sales and customer engagement, according to a study released this week.
Read full article on Internetnews>>

Why the White House is Hiring a Social Media Archivist

These days, as White House communication extends into areas of social media, and new challenges arise having to do with archiving this information.  Things like blog postings, Twitter messages, YouTube videos and even blog comments, cannot go unrecorded. Last month, the Federal Business Opportunities web site posted a notice seeking bid-proposals from and outside contractor do  just that.
Read full article on Mashable>>