AOL To Bring Advertising.com To India

Exclusive: MediaNama has learned from multiple, reliable sources that AOL is in the process of launching its ad-network Advertising.com in India. The launch is expected to be in August or September. AOL India has declined to comment.

We’re told that the network will essentially aggregate India-specific inventory from a large number of international sites. AOL does have an ad sales team in India, led by Tarun Sobhani, but they’ve been focused, so far, on AOL.in. Advertising.com might also target Indian publishers with content-specific channels; one that we’ve heard about is a Bollywood focused channel. ABC - Astrology, Bollywood and Cricket - are the most popular categories of content in India.

AOLs International operations are headquartered in India, led by Maneesh Dhir (EVP International for AOL), and this, effectively, is the launch of Platform A in India, of which Advertising.com is a part. Given the increasing popularity of WAP in India, I wouldn’t be surprised if Third Screen Media also gets launched at some point in time. Readers should note that, last September, AOL had combined its advertising companies - Advertising.com (acquired for $435 Million in cash in 2004), Third Screen Media (acquired in May ‘07), TACODA (acquired July ‘07), Lightningcast and ADTECH - into a separate subsidiary called Platform A.

The launch of Advertising.com in India is significant - such a large player is likely to bring in resources into play, bring more advertisers and publishers into the fold, effectively help grow the Indian digital advertising market.

Current players in the Indian advertising network include Tyroo Media (in which Yahoo owns a significant minority stake), Komli (investment from Nexus India Capital, Helion Venture Partners and DFJ), Interactive Avenues (Sequoia Capital India), Ozone Media recently received around $4 Million (reportedly) in investment from IDG Ventures. Not sure of what’s happened to PayPod, though. From what we’ve heard, affiliate marketing network DGM India has been a significant success, and another affiliate network is being launched in the country. Update: The most dominant player - Google’s Adsense.

What’s interesting is that Advertising.com is entering the market at a time when vertical advertising networks are making their first appearance - Games2Win has recently launched a Game-portal specific network InviziAds, Ishir Digital is launching TonicTag, Goosefish Media Ventures (funding from Capital18) is launching at least two networks - DivaNation and GoSindbad.

Related: Hey Hey Platform A, How Much Money Did You Lose Today?

Vertical Ad Networks In India: GooseFish To Launch DivaNation, Sindbad, Others; Ishir-Tonic Tag

Update (2nd July): Goosefish appears to have dropped the idea of more ad networks, reports Afaqs.

Update (27 June): As per reliable sources, GooseFish is also considering other ad networks - one on Business (targeting ET, Mint, India Infoline, MoneyControl etc), Tech (targeting Tech2.0, Techtree, Alootechie etc), CXO (Premium ad network) and Bollywood (IndiaFM, Bombay Bitch etc).

Original Story (27 June): Goosefish Media Ventures, a 100 percent owned subsidiary of digital agency WebChutney, is planning to launch a couple of vertical advertising networks, Medianama has learned from sources. The network, called DivaNation, claims to be India’s first Womens Media Network, and is currently seeking partners for a network of “Indian Women on the Web”.

View the email sent out by DivaNation to prospective publishing partners here.

The rationale behind this is fairly simple - women are the biggest target-group for advertisers, and will provide them with a focused channel for advertising. DivaNation is claiming that they have HLL, P&G, Nestle and consumer durable brands already on board. The advertisers are easy, but its difficult to get inventory. Goosefish has investments from Network18 company Capital18 (via WebChutney), and there appears to be synergy between the DivaNation and Web18s portal IndiWo. The idea of a Womens Ad Network isn’t a new one - in fact, there’s been a trend of publications morphing into advertising networks. GlamMedia is perhaps the largest and the most famous of them all. Other significant international ad networks targeting women include iVillage and BlogHerAds.

Goosefish is also launching a travel ad network called Sindbad, which is going to take up inventory on Travel portals like MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Travelguru and the likes. We’ve heard that they’ve already got MakeMyTrip and Yatra on board as exclusive partners. Goosefish has a few sites as a part of its portfolio as well - including Alootechie (Indian Online Industry), Bombay Bitch

Another vertical specific ad network launched recently is Tonic Tag from the agency Ishir Digital, which is focused on technology sites and blogs. I think that comprises of a fairly significant number of highly involved users. Good time to start a gadget blog?

For over a year now, people have been considering a Federated Media kind of an advertising network, comprising primarily of premium blogs. The most difficult task, however, has been identifying and convincing bloggers to come on board.

I’m wondering if the launch of Vertical ad networks will actually help grow the advertising market, or will it just cannibalize on inventory from generic ad networks. Which other verticals do you think can support a niche ad network in India?

Update: Siddharth Puri has an interesting post here with details on how to evaluate an Ad Network.

Follow Up: Goosefish Media Ventures launches online ad networks