Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Lesley Grossblatt of I/PRO regarding their very cool product made for advertisers/publishers: SPOTSITE.

What is SPOTSITE?
SPOTSITE is an online marketplace where advertisers can search for specific demographics across a broad range of small- to medium-sized websites. Using SPOTSITE, advertisers can more effectively target their ad buys, and publishers can attract higher-quality, premium advertising to their sites.

How does this work?
For example, say an ad agency is selling Cover Girl makeup to 16 year old girls. While a site with 1,000 very loyal 16 year old girls may not be worth Cover Girl's time, 100 sites with 1,000 loyal 16 year old girls each would be. But how does Cover Girl find these sites? They could try to research these sites on their own and negotiate advertising deals with each, but this would be much too time-consuming and expensive. With SPOTSITE, they can instantly access the demographic they need across multiple sites, plus have verified demographic and traffic audits at their fingertips to prove the value of the buy to their clients.

Advertisers can also place and manage buys within SPOTSITE using a simple web interface that integrates with their media planning, billing and accounting systems.

Target Customers for SPOTSITE
SPOTSITE’s target customers are: (1) small- to medium-sized web publishers with loyal niche audiences; and (2) major advertising agencies and media buying firms that need to build online brand identity and recognition for their clients.

Needs/Pains Addressed by SPOTSITE
Advertisers look for demographics, not search terms or broad categories. Most online advertising tools, such as search-based ad marketplaces and ad networks, don’t offer easy ways for advertisers to find a targeted demographic because they simply don’t have that information available. Advertisers can sometimes find the demographics they need in the largest publisher sites (e.g., magazines), but this ad space is scarce and incredibly costly. By combining thousands of sites with detailed demographic information, SPOTSITE gives ad buyers a more efficient and less expensive way to speak to a demographic across multiple small- to medium-sized niche sites.

For small- to medium-sized publishers, SPOTSITE provides a way to attract more targeted and valuable advertising than they could on their own. With SPOTSITE, publishers can expand beyond search and affiliate marketing to sell more valuable brand-focused display advertising on their sites.

Screen Shots
The image below is an excerpt of the traffic report we provide publishers on a monthly basis. Traffic reporting is page-tag driven, and provides information on page views, unique visitors, where visitors came from (both geographically and by domain/URL), where visitors went within the site, and where they went when they left.



The image below is an excerpt of the demographic report that we provide to our publisher customers. Demographic survey questions cover basics such as age, income, education level, but can incorporate customized questions to meet publisher and advertiser needs.



The image below is where advertisers and publishers log into the SPOTSITE system. Note that there are separate logins for the two types of customers because they use the system for different purposes (e.g., publishers list inventory, advertisers search inventory).



When an advertiser runs a search for a particular demographic, the SPOTSITE system identifies all sites in our network: (1) whose audience matches the demographic profile; (2) who offer the requested ad type (e.g., leaderboard); (3) who have inventory available on the dates requested; and (4) whose CPM rate is the same or lower than the rate requested.



The final image is an example of the quick snapshot of information about the site that the advertiser can view while placing a buy. The information includes links to the most recent audited traffic and demographic reports for the site.



More about I/PRO...
Since 1994, I/PRO has provided verified traffic and audience demographic reporting to websites of all sizes, from Autotrader.com to AintItCoolNews.com. We recently introduced SPOTSITE, an online marketplace where advertisers can search our demographic and traffic reports to find the most targeted sites to place display advertising campaigns. To encourage publishers to join our network, we are currently offering our verified traffic and demographic reports at no cost in exchange for publishers listing ad inventory in SPOTSITE.