Trying to figure out a site's convoluted contextual ads

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Nomara

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May 30, 2007
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Anyone know what network (AdSense, Yahoo, etc.) prosper.com is using for its contextual ads?

An example page:
Olympus Evolt E-500 - Pronto.com - Compare Prices and Save

I'm mostly interested because when you click on an ad it links to a page on prosper that does a bunch of redirects. It would be nice to serve ads this way so that I could do better tracking than I can currently do with my AdSense ads which have the user go directly through google when they click an ad.

So when I click on an ad, these are the headers that I can see using Live HTTP Headers:

1. Goes to pronto.com/user/redirection.do
2. 302 redirection to tmsyn.an.ask.com (Ask.com's contextual ads?)
3. 302 redirection to google.com (Are Ask.com's contextual ads based off AdSense? WTF?)
4. Depending on the specific ad, sometimes a 302 redirect to an intermediate like servedby.advertising.com (I didn't know Google dealt with intermediaries like this)
5. Finally, a 302 redirect to the advertiser's site

So somehow ask.com, google.com, and servedby.advertising.com are all working together? Am I stupid to be really confused by this?
 


I forgot to mention that I got to that prosper.com page through a sponsored link on Google. I guess this would be a form of Arbitrage 2.0? I am a little bit surprised that they can get away with nothing but ads above the fold.
 
No offense but who GAF. They could be using several networks. Are you into affiliate marketing or pondering the mysteries of the world? Monetize your sites with whatever converts and what pays better and don't waste your time on things over which you have no control.
 
Maybe I should have emphasized this sentence:

It would be nice to serve ads this way so that I could do better tracking than I can currently do with my AdSense ads which have the user go directly through google when they click an ad.
Click to expand...

So which network will allow me to do that?

I also want to know if they are using AdSense, because then it would seem to be Adwords to AdSense arbitrage and if they can get away with it, then it is probably worth figuring out so that I can do it myself.
 
Ask uses a google ad feed that they have been given the right to use. They basically arbi the google leads. So what may be happening is...
1) Pronto logs the click and passes to ASK
2) Ask then redirects to the Google ad so they can track
3) Google sends to their advertiser, but that advertiser has the interstitial page, which may or may not be hurting their quality score, as it could employ cloaking from the google bot...

Basically, unless you are a 'big guy' like Ask, you probably cannot get away with some of this...

Just my guess, though...
 
Thank you cashflowrusty.

So it sounds like if you use Ask's contextual ads, you can set them up so that they hit a redirect page on your site first? I might have to check that out. I like the amount of control that would give you.
 
I'm sorry, I meant pronto. Prosper was stuck in my head for some reason. On a side note, how is lending on prosper working for you? Do you make good money?
 
Nomara said:
Thank you cashflowrusty.
Click to expand...
No, Thank you!

Nomara said:
So it sounds like if you use Ask's contextual ads, you can set them up so that they hit a redirect page on your site first? I might have to check that out. I like the amount of control that would give you.
Click to expand...
You would have to ask... Ask. I tried some traffic about a year ago with them and they ATE MY MONEY FAST with no return... Coulda been me, but I had that account closed quicker than... well, quick anyhow...
 
Found your answer. Pronto.com is an IAC company. (About Pronto - Our Company)

IAC is the parent company of Ask.com.

Everything that you're looking at is probably an unavailable-to-general-publishers contextual advertising engine. They probably just compare their earnings-per-click from a direct (Ask.com) adsale versus a Google ad sale (and probably a dozen other ad networks), and post up whichever one makes more money for them, which gets tracked & managed in that redirect system they've got setup.

Moral of the story is that it's proprietary, and even though Ask.com swears they'll figure out contextual marketing, your best bet is to look elsewhere.
 
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