As more brands look to engage in mobile advertising, we recognize that there is a lot of confusion in the marketplace on the role of different players.  It is no surprise since mobile can look like the wild-west compared to online advertising. 

Online is pretty simple.  If you want wide reach, you go to a horizontal ad network.  For specific audiences, go to vertical networks or direct to publishers.  Your online campaign is bought, trafficked and managed through an ad server, such as DART or ATLAS.  Ad formats and standards have been established by the IAB and rich media vendors like PointRoll or EyeBlaster.  You only need to worry about supporting a handful of browsers, and industry standards such as Flash are commonplace.  Reporting is delivered through your ad server or a rich media vendor’s. 

Yet in mobile, there is much more overlap between vendors.  Some publishers sell direct, others work with ad networks or both.  There is no clear distinction between premium and remnant inventory. Ad networks, rich media vendors, and ad servers all offer different technologies when it comes to ad formats, ad serving, and reporting.  Overall, there are more technologies (devices, OSs, etc) to support, and less standardization.  In short, it is an emerging market.  Rather than specialize, vendors do everything. Ad networks develop rich media ad units and rich media vendors offer connections to publishers.

So where does Crisp Wireless fit in?

We are a mobile rich media advertising company. What does that mean exactly? It means that we deliver a platform that includes engaging ad formats, optimizes rich media across the mobile web and mobile applications for smartphones, and delivers in-depth, real-time reporting and analytics from pre-click through conversion.  We do not represent ad inventory and we are not an ad network.

However, we have formed and manage an informal association of premium publishers, the Crisp Publisher Alliance. These are the publishers that have tested our rich media ad formats and are prepared to run Crisp ad units for appropriate campaigns brought to them by agencies. Unlike ad networks whose business model is based on revenue share, we charge a rich media serving CPM.

How Crisp Works with Publishers:

1. Premium publishers are invited to join our Rich Media Alliance.  We test and certify our ad formats for your mobile site or application.
2. We provide a platform, APIs, and rich media ad formats that command higher CPMs and deliver greater value to your advertisers.
3. We deliver real-time reporting to support campaign measurement pre and post-click.
4. We make agencies aware of publishers in the Crisp Publisher Alliance, which often results in campaign deal flow to publishers.
5. We also refer opportunities for brands looking to utilize our rich media ad units to our Publisher Alliance partners to close.
6. We work with some publisher ad sales teams to support their mobile sales efforts including RFPs, demos, and in-field sales training and support.

How Crisp Works with Brand Advertisers and Agencies:

1. Crisp provides innovative ad formats that deliver higher rates of engagement and interaction.
2. We offer ad templates, open APIs, and creative services enabling agencies to easily utilize our ad formats.
3. We support ad serving through your existing online ad server so there is no need to purchase a separate mobile ad server.
4. Crisp provides detailed, real-time analytics for A/B testing and campaign measurement.
5. We introduce you to our rich media publisher alliance to facilitate media buys and to enable you to easily set up campaigns on premium sites and applications.

How Crisp work with Ad Networks

1. Ad networks utilize Crisp’s rich media ad formats and reporting to deliver greater value to their advertisers.
2. Partnering with Crisp allows ad networks to focus on what they do best, selling mobile ad inventory.
3. Crisp is not competing with ad networks on ad inventory sales. On the contrary, we refer agencies to our Publisher Alliance partners or ad network partners for mobile ad buys.

Any premium publisher, whether or not we mobilize and manage its mobile sites, can join the Crisp Publisher Alliance. Of course, we continue to support our mobilization customers with innovation and services to maintain and enhance their mobile sites.  Joining the Crisp Publisher Alliance simply allows existing mobilization customers to maximize the revenue they receive from mobile advertising.

Still confused on who to work with in mobile advertising? Give me a call, I’m happy to share my views.