David Gorcey joined Kontera in July of 2006 and has lead the Publisher Account Management team for the last two years. He grew up in Southern California and has spent time living in London and Finland before moving to San Francisco 5 years ago. As Manager of Publisher Services, David primarily works with Kontera’s Account Management team on the optimization and management of Kontera’s publisher network.

Can you point out a few things that Kontera’s top earners have in common?

I know we’ve touched on this on the blog already (see post 5 Things Kontera Top Earners Have In Common) but having targeted, well written content is really something that characterizes our top earners. When you think about it, this is beneficial in several ways- 1) it improves the relevancy of the ads Kontera can serve in your content, 2) It also brings you more targeted ads if you use AdSense or something similar, and 3) it helps you from an SEO perspective. The more targeted and quality content you are able to include on your site, the better off you will be from an advertising and user experience perspective. Most of our top earners have also put some effort into the design of their site because you want the aesthetic and flow to be one that users find visually pleasing and easy to read and navigate.

What would you like to tell Kontera’s present and future publishers?

For Kontera’s current publishers, the first thing I’d like to say is that we truly do appreciate your business and that we look forward to pursuing a successful long term partnership with each and every one of you. We value your input and always welcome your insight and suggestions so please keep them coming. Near term, you can expect to see us build on our technological leadership and continue to pursue advancements that will increase our ability to provide relevant advertising with meaningful earnings for you. Overall, I am excited for what 2009 will bring to everyone using Kontera already, and anyone who might be looking to give us a try in the coming months.

What communication channels does Kontera offer to assist and serve its publishers?

Kontera places very high importance on interacting with and responding to publishers. Some publishers have a direct account manager so for them, this is the most effective way to get in touch with us. Aside from that, our email support staff (support@kontera.com) are very effective at realizing what someone’s specific needs are and determining who best can help them with their question. Although different inquiries require varying degrees of resources, our goal is making sure that no matter what it is, a publisher’s question is addressed as quickly and effectively as possible so I would recommend this as the primary communication channel for any publisher questions or input.

Because our product is focused exclusively online, we also play an active role in many online forums and discussion boards that pertain to our industry or product specifically, and this is another way we have been able to engage and communicate with our users. Finally, our blog helps us spread the word on news, developments, or anything else that is going on here, and along with our knowledge base (kb.kontera.com) provides an excellent resource for information and tips. As you can see, we expend a lot of efforts on engaging and interacting with the people that use our technology

Overall, I’d just like to reiterate the value Kontera places on all publishers in our network and our sincere desire to develop successful long term partnerships with every one of you. You’ve helped us become the leader in the in-text marketplace and we look forward to building on that success with you even more in the coming year.

It’s time for the Top Clicked Keywords post again and the list, including some nice surprises, is out and ready to show.

If keywords are an indication of the general atmosphere at any given time, then Love is definitely in the air throughout this recent period. We say this as we note that Holidays & Special Occasions category rocked the charts with “Valentine’s Day” related keywords. As always, most people choose to “send roses” when striving to show that special someone how much they really care.

Anything or anyone that has to do with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue was a huge click generator, these include race car driver and model, Danica Patrick, who’s featured in this issue and has generated the most clicks in the “Sports” category. The 200-lap, 500 mile-long Daytona 500 NASCAR race, came in third, so yes; swimsuits and race cars are a winning combination.

The winter season is characterized by the tendency to pack on a few extra pounds; it’s hardly surprising that when the cold season comes to a wrap the “Health” category is dominated by “weight loss”, “diet plan”, and the “Mediterranean diet”.

In the “Computing & Internet” category, Microsoft’s important release of the Windows 7 beta has generated a lot of interest but still the click-through-rates for “Windows XP” and “windows vista” are higher.

The “Top Clicked Keywords” post series is aimed at providing you additional information about the top performing keywords in our network. If you’ve been following this series than you know that we try to move between the keyword categories covered. If we’ve been missing out on your niche, or if you want a better indication of your site’s top performers, be sure to login to the Publisher Center and check your account’s keyword report. For previous posts visit Top Clicked Keywords.

When undertaking an online advertising campaign, advertisers strive to engage users. Campaign goals vary from increasing brand awareness to introducing a product’s advantages while encouraging users to try it out. Meeting these goals in the highly competitive and fast paced online marketing sphere is a challenging task. Campaigns these days have to engage users by delivering the advertiser’s messaging in an innovative and compelling way.

Kontera’s In-text advertising is an ideal medium through which to meet this challenge.  ContentLink ads are placed where users’ attention is focused, within the text, while Kontera’s advanced technology, ensures maximum relevancy between the ads and the content in which they’re featured. ContentLink is a rich advertising tool which simultaneously provides added user-value and a particularly well targeted advertising campaign.

Below is an example of a rich media campaign recently launched:

With advanced contextual advertising technology and a variety of original and engaging ad formats Kontera’s ContentLink can assist every advertiser in meeting their branding and conversion goals with a user initiated advertising unit.

Read more about “Looking Outside the (Search) Box” in online advertising.

Within the constantly evolving online world, some norms are re-examined every time a new technology, beyond a certain size and scope of influence, is introduced. In other words, most new technologies undergo some period of “evaluation” by users, upon first emerging into the market; a period which could last from months to years.  If you recall the discussion around RSS earlier in the decade, quite a few site owners and bloggers at the time were concerned with their content being republished and read elsewhere, while their site does not gain the visits for the content.  It took some time before web publishers fully accepted the outweighing benefits of RSS, one being the fact that it enables a greater reach and thus a greater readership for their content.  The benefits that RSS afforded to users, proved to be an advantage to publishers as well.

Something similar has happened with In-Text Advertising. In-Text became widespread as its benefits became well known.  If we look back to earlier in the decade, In-Text Advertising was causing some controversy as some prominent websites, began to display ads and information, within their content.  As quoted on iMedia, “The problem that caused the controversy in In-Text Advertising had more to do with the medium in which it appeared than with the message.”  It was not so much an issue with the advertisement as with the new medium through which they were served.  In the case of Kontera’s In-Text, the benefits to advertisers and to publishers are well known. But as Kontera’s philosophy is three fold, we wanted to highlight the main benefit In-Text hold for users. Indeed, in the last few years, Kontera’s contextual advertising technology has proved its advantages to users by offering a distinct added value- access to highly relevant ads and information that is in sync with the most current interest and state of mind of the reader.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of In-Text lies in the fact that it suits today’s dynamic online mode of work. We are already a different type of online user than we were even 5 years ago.   We refer to the contemporary multi-tasking user.  We know all about the- multi tabbing, multi window, updating my Facebook while completing chart on excel- mode of work.  Considering this, it’s really not surprising that In-Text has earned its popularity over the past few years.  With the possibility of being in more than one place at a time, finding access to extended information while being engaged with content, Kontera’s In Text brings an added value to today’s online user.

Bryan Everett, Kontera’s SVP Business and Development, was interviewed on Adotas this week.  In a Q & A series, Everett presents an overview of Kontera- technology, history, and direction. Through this overview, Everett offers interesting insight into the world of In-Text contextual advertising.  Here’s a sneak peek:

Q: With more than 300 ad networks out there, how do you add value to advertisers? Publishers?

A: Considering the economic situation we’re in now, more advertising dollars will be pushed towards performance-based vehicles. As it relates to advertisers, what differentiates us from other ad networks is that we are a Cost-Per-Click based platform which means that they only pay for performance. In addition, we convert well for advertisers once users do click on an ad. For publishers, we provide a very strong additive eCPM to the overall page, as well as a solid user experience because we choose the most relevant keywords and ads at the most relevant and opportune time… Go to Article

2009 has only just begun and we’re kicking it off with a brand new post series -”The Kontera Publisher of the Month”.

Through this post series, each month we’ll introduce you to one of the most interesting and unique sites from amongst Kontera’s network of publishers. Ask-Leo.com, the first Kontera Publisher of the Month for 2009, is a perfect example of a website that truly deserves your bookmarks.

Ask-Leo is a website that offers answers to hundreds of tech questions in a variety of categories.  The site is easy to use, and provides thorough and informative advice that anyone from a tech newbie to an experienced programmer or webmaster will find useful.  Leo A. Notenboom, the man behind Ask-Leo, is a former software engineer for Microsoft who has decided to share his wealth of knowledge in the personal computer and software industry with Internet users worldwide.

As the owner of the January Kontera Publisher of the Month, Leo has agreed to answer a few questions for us; we hope you’ll enjoy this interview.

It’s widely known that you were a Microsoft employee for over a decade prior to starting ask-leo!; what was the impetus for starting your own business?

I didn’t actually set out to start a business. After 18 years at Microsoft I “retired”. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that my job was also my hobby, so I couldn’t really stop playing with computers and technology. I have some friends who are also internet entrepreneurs, and I started to dabble in a world outside of Microsoft.  As you might expect family and friends were always asking me questions, so I started to write up the answers to questions I was getting asked most often. Those entrepreneur friends gave me guidance on things like web site construction, search engines and the like, and they also pointed out that this might well be a revenue opportunity. That was in 2003, and the rest, as they say, is history.

How many questions were submitted to Ask-Leo during 2008? What were the most common types of questions?

I don’t have an exact count, but on average I get between 50 and 100 questions and blog comments (which are often also questions) per day. So I’d put it in the 25,000 range.

Most common, by far, are questions relating to password recovery, email account theft, and loss of email account access. After that it starts to vary widely into areas like Windows quirks, suspected hardware failures, specific software problems as well as issues around viruses and spyware.

What was the strangest question you have received?

There are so many to choose from, I don’t think I could. But I certainly do collect the odd and off-beat questions, and each year on the anniversary of Ask Leo! (August 10th), I post a “best of” collection on my personal blog. You can see last year’s collection, and links to the prior years, here: http://ask-leo.com/d-bestof5. I will say this: I’m somewhat surprised, and a little concerned, at the frequency I get asked for relationship advice – I am a computer geek, after all.

Thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs start their own website/blogs daily with the hopes of building a profitable, internet-based business.   What “words of wisdom” do you have for these fledgling entrepreneurs?

There are no shortcuts, but well focused and well directed hard work can be both rewarded and rewarding.

Getting Ask Leo! up and running was a fair amount of work, and it took a goodly amount of time before it truly started to look like a business. It was probably two years before it was generating a reasonable amount of revenue. During that time I was carefully learning about what it means to write authentic content for the web, what it means to be search engine friendly, and what it takes to manage a resource of this magnitude.

Even then that’s not enough. I’m actually a fairly small player in what happens to be an extremely large segment (on-line tech support). It’s a great segment for me, because in many ways answering people’s questions is what I was doing anyway. Formalizing that, and doing it myself in a public venue like Ask Leo! not only capitalizes on my experience and interests, but also allows me to differentiate myself from other players by simply being myself. Every Ask Leo! article (save one, I believe) was written by me, and I plan to keep it that way. In all honesty, that’s part of what keeps it fun for me.

Another point of common wisdom is the adage “find a problem and solve it”. I don’t have to find problems, they come to me. I can’t solve them all, but when I can, everyone walks away happy, myself included.

When did you start to monetize Ask-Leo and what role does In-Text advertising play in your overall monetization strategy?

It actually started out as a for-pay service. For $27 I would answer your question or give you your money back. That lasted only a couple of months. Google’s AdSense program was picking up steam, and of course I signed up. That’s when the power of advertising in general became readily apparent to me.

In-text advertising such as Kontera’s came along later, of course, but has become an important source of not just revenue, but security. I say there’s a natural concern about building businesses or websites around a single advertising relationship. Kontera’s participation in Ask Leo!’s profitability turned out to be significant, and definitely helps mitigate the risk of perhaps otherwise having all my eggs in one basket.

What also became readily apparent, is that contextual targeting is key. With a problem/solution site such as Ask Leo!, it’s not that uncommon for one of the ads to actually be the solution that my reader is looking for. It doesn’t get much better than that when it happens.

What sort of responses have you been getting from Ask-Leo users with regards to the various types of advertising you employ?

I get amazingly little feedback on the ads. Occasionally someone will confuse an Adsense ad as being some kind of recommendation from me, but I’ve not heard of that happening with Kontera ads. I do get occasional complaints, either for advertising in general or for the in-text ads, but that might be once every other month or so. Given that I’m running 1.3 million visitors a month right now, I consider “one in two million” an acceptable rate. (And I do make available and answer that includes instructions for people who would like to turn off the in-text ads.)

What’s in store for Ask-Leo users as we look to 2009?

Honestly, mostly more of same.

As we talk, I’m actually in the process of kicking off a major editorial review of the entire site, bringing the content up to more consistent level of quality, as quality is so key to continued success on the web. But that’s almost administrative in nature.

More visible will simply be my reacting to those 50-100 questions I get every day, and see where they take me. One of the reasons I so enjoy my career/hobby is that there’s something new every day; something to learn, to research or to play with. The fact that I can do so in a way that also helps people overcome some of the problems and frustrations they have with their computers is just fantastic.

The Kontera Publisher of the Month series kicked off in January of 2009. A publisher is selected from Kontera’s network each month and provides an insider’s perspective on what it takes to manage a successful site. To learn more visit the Publisher of the Month Category.

Bryan Everett, Kontera’s Senior VP Sales & Business Development, was interviewed on VatorNews last Tuesday. The interview, conducted by Bambi Francisco, reveals much about the In-Text advertising industry, and of course, much about Kontera.

We’re glad to present it here on the blog, so get ready to learn something new:

September is at the doorstep, bringing with it a breath of cool autumn air… and, of course, some exciting fall events:

OMMA Global
Sept 18 -19 (NYC)

OMMA Global “Platform Wars” will focus on the countless Web sectors and the race to provide the next great platform on which consumer applications are built.
Hear from leaders in the interactive marketing revolution and discuss where the online media world is headed.

Kontera’s booth will be in the mini-trade show area. Stop by to meet us and learn more about Kontera.

MIXX Conference Awards

Sept 22 – 23 (MIXX Awards on Sept 23 – NYC)

The MIXX Conference and Expo, the Official Interactive Event of Advertising Week 2008, is the preeminent event for marketing and agency professionals and the publishers and technology firms who help drive their efforts. MIXX brings together the industry’s most prominent and influential speakers talking about the most pressing and innovative topics in interactive today. Further, the powerhouse list of marketers, agencies, publishers and industry professionals in attendance offers huge networking opportunities.

Meet Kontera! Stop by booth 102 to meet the team and learn more about Kontera.

Drupal users will be happy to hear that there’s a new plugin in town. Kontera ContentLinks are now offered along with a range of new features to accommodate your Drupal site.

With the new Drupal plugin for ContentLinks ads, you’ll be able to:

• Add the ContentLink tag to all your pages in one click
• Block ContentLink ads from appearing on particular pages
• Display ads only to non-registered users
• Enable/Disable ads from polls, search results or forums
• Change ContentLinks’ color

Download plugin for Drupal 5.7
Download plugin for Drupal 6.1

Installation:

1. Download plugin and unzip the file.

2. Upload the unzipped folder to your ’sites/all/modules’ directory. If the “modules” subdirectory does not exist, then it should be created.

3. Login to your Drupal Account, and on the left side menu select “Administer” and then “Site building”.

4. Within the “Site Building” section select “Modules”. Scroll down the “Modules” page to find the newly created “Kontera ContentLink” module. Check the box on the left hand side and click on the “Save Configuration” button.

5. On the Drupal menu select “Site Configuration” and then “Kontera settings” to set your plugin preferences.

6. Within the “Kontera Settings” page, add your Kontera Publisher ID in the appropriate field. This is your personal ID which appears on your ContentLink tag:

Now select your ContentLink™ preferences, click the “Save configuration” button and you’re good to go!

Download plugin for Drupal 5.7
Download plugin for Drupal 6.1

Read more on Kontera’s In-Text Advertising

LinkedIn members, we gladly introduce to you, Microsoft related content ads- powered by Kontera.

What does that mean, exactly?

Our relevancy engine is built to determine the true context of any webpage and to match it with the most relevant ads. This technology will now be utilized to serve contextually relevant information from Microsoft in ad units appearing on “LinkedIn Answers”.
LinkedIn users will be able to follow a related Microsoft ad in order to expand their search for answers on technology related questions.

How does it work?

Kontera’s engine analyzes LinkedIn answers page in real-time while matching it with related topics from Microsoft TechNet. Following, these topics are displayed on an ad unit, enabling users to find additional answers and information.

To see Kontera’s Microsoft implementation on LinkedIn, login to your LinkedIn account and click on the “Answers” tab. Within “Answers”, click on the ‘Technology’ link and then on the ‘Information Technology’ link.

Visit our website and find out more about the Kontera -Microsoft-LinkedIn collaboration and about Kontera’s Contextual Advertising Technology