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RMX Direct - Getting The Ad Networks To Fight Over You

written by John Chow on February 27th, 2007

You Want A Piece Of Me? Bid For It!

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Right Media’s RMX Direct for Publisher plans to rival Google’s AdSense as the number 1 moneymaker for small to medium-size publishers and blogs. Now, as you laugh this off as crazy wishful thinking, consider this: Right Media raised $57 million in venture funding and Yahoo! acquired a 20% stake in the company in 2006. And we all know just how much Yahoo! would love to take down Google!

The RMX Direct for publisher service has been in beta since Michael Walrath founded the company. However, after a successful beta period, RMX Direct for Publisher is now officially open for business. To help spread the word and generate some buzz, Right Media was kind enough spend $125 of their $57 million on this ReviewMe review. And of course, they took advantage of the 50% coupon - got to save those millions, you know!

RMX Direct is a free ad network manager that helps you, the publisher/blogger, sell your inventory easily and for maximum revenue. Your networks and other ad networks in the Right Media Exchange compete for every one of your impressions in real-time. You allocate each impression to the highest-paying advertiser automatically. The service allows you to:

  • Increase your ad revenue
  • Simplify your ad network management
  • Protect your site from misclassified creatives or ads with Spyware, ActiveX, etc.
  • Encourages you to work with your existing relationships

Before RMX Direct came along, I managed my ad rotation by using the “default to” system. Nearly all ad networks offer a default; a place to send a request to if the primary network doesn’t have any paying ads to show. Many publishers, when dealing with multiple ad networks, set up what is knows a “default chain” - Google defaults to Tribal, Tribal defaults to FastClick, FastClick defaults to whatever, etc.

The problem with above setup is networks don’t report what other networks were willing to pay for the same impressions. Nor do you have any control over which ad impressions were sent to the default networks. It is possible that FastClick maybe paying more than Tribal but you won’t realized the extra income if Tribal is ahead in the default chain and has inventory for you. RMX Direct takes these networks and make them all bid for your inventory, ensuring you receive the maximum CPM possible.

How Does It Work?

The concept of RMX Direct for Publisher is simple and genius at the same time. By making ad networks bid for your impression, Right Media puts the power back in the publishers’ hands.

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Once you’ve signed up for a RMX Direct account, you’re presented with a timeline of things to do for the next few days. First on the list is to apply to some ad networks. RMX provides nine ad networks from the Right Media Exchange that you can join with just a simple click of the apply button. You can also enter any ad networks you already belong to.

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When entering your own ad networks, or your own ads, you are asked for the average CPM price you’ll get from that network or ad. This becomes the base price that other advertisers and networks will try to beat.

Once you have accounts with whichever ad networks from the Right Media Exchange and/or enter all your own ad networks (or directly sold banners), the fun begins. After replacing all your current ad codes with RMX Direct codes, RMX Direct will serve whichever ads or ad network is paying the most. Right Media has four case studies from their beta test showing how RMX Direct helps publishers fully monetize their sites.

How Does RMX Direct Make Money?

Currently RMX Direct is a completely free service for publishers and ad networks. Right Media does take a cut from the nine ad networks in their exchange but you can enter your own networks at no cost. Right Media is going for market share and has a decent size venture fund to burn. Add in the backing of Yahoo!, and I doubt they’re worry about running out of money.

The advertising landscape just got a whole lot more interesting.

Ed Lau said on February 27th, 2007 at 9:52 pm

Hmmm, looks interesting. Maybe I’ll give it a shot. Google hasn’t been performing lately, giving me all kinds of weird ads.

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Saman Sadeghi said on February 28th, 2007 at 12:09 pm

It really is an interesting concept, I’ll have to check this out for myselft!

Reply to this comment
Saman Sadeghi said on March 1st, 2007 at 7:25 am

Wow, I have made more money on one night with this program then three months through AdSense alone!

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Ashish Mohta said on March 3rd, 2007 at 8:13 pm

But will it not voialte toc of adsense?

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Jez said on March 5th, 2007 at 12:47 am

I think that depends on how well you target your page, and how many adds relate to your content, though you do get some wierd ones from time to time

Reply to this comment
Brad said on February 27th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

You can find me in the video testimonials on the main page. :wink:

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Ajith said on February 27th, 2007 at 10:01 pm

Thanks John for the valuable info. But I dont think theyll be taking down gogle any soon. Its mainly because of the trust factor with google. Any way I am gonna join it

Reply to this comment
Allen.H said on February 28th, 2007 at 9:08 pm

They won’t, but taking a bite in the market share will definitely open the doors for bigger opportunities.

Allen.H

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Jez said on March 5th, 2007 at 12:48 am

No way, Google really have a lead in this market, as you would expect

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Aaron Cook said on February 27th, 2007 at 10:06 pm

This one definitely looks interesting.

Brad, nice video by the way. Gotta love those graphs!

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Michael Kwan said on February 27th, 2007 at 10:21 pm

The interesting thing is that it doesn’t necessarily remove Adsense from the picture. As John shows, you can put Google as part of your ad rotation (if it happens to be serving up the highest rate).

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Saman Sadeghi said on February 28th, 2007 at 12:12 pm

It would be nice to have Google fight over me!

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WildBluff_Matt said on March 1st, 2007 at 4:47 am

I was thinking the same thing. I believe I have a long ways to go first though.

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Saman Sadeghi said on March 1st, 2007 at 7:26 am

Start networking!!!! It’s worked for me!

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Jez said on March 5th, 2007 at 12:49 am

I know, the rest of us have to fight over Google (ranking) :sad:

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Pat McCarthy said on February 27th, 2007 at 10:52 pm

Thanks for the review John! And if you don’t mind a couple of clarifications:

- Right Media was actually founded in 2003 and operated as an ad network with our auctioning technology until early 2005 when we launched the Right Media Exchange tying networks, advertisers, and publishers all together on one platform. Then in late 2006 we launched RMX Direct into beta, and just took it out of beta January 29th.

- I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re a competitor to Adsense, as an astute commenter pointed out that we invite and promote that you work with other ad providers by and have them compete in our application. Publishers are more than welcome to still work with Adsense through RMX Direct. The nine networks that are built into our application will only buy ad impressions from you when they can pay more than other networks like Adsense.

- The product is free to publishers, but the nine networks involved do pay us to be a part of the product and have access to the publishers. So, this is not a “revenue-less” application, it’s just free to publishers to use and RMX Direct doesn’t take a cut of your ad revenue from our networks.

Thanks again.

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HMTKSteve said on February 28th, 2007 at 2:47 am

Is this more of a toll to help you manage your advertising impressions rather than an advertiser? i.e. You are the BASF of online advertising? “We don’t make the ads, we make them better.”

PS: I just copyrighted that so… ;)

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Vikas said on February 27th, 2007 at 10:59 pm

May be I’ll give it a try :cool:

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Matthew said on February 28th, 2007 at 12:36 am

signing up, hope it isnt as disappointing as tla and advolcano has been for me

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Nocturnal said on February 28th, 2007 at 1:36 am

Just signed up, big mahalos!

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Kumiko said on February 28th, 2007 at 1:55 am

This is very interesting indeed. From what I gather, it virtually combines all the advertisers under one program. If many people were to use this, the competition and drive advertising prices up, wouldn’t it? Sounds good for those displaying the ads.

Kumiko
:grin:

Reply to this comment
Ajith said on February 28th, 2007 at 3:01 am

John Do goto Kumiko’s She got some vibrations for you. :lol:

Reply to this comment
Allen.H said on February 28th, 2007 at 4:18 am

So basically RMX allow you to replace Adsense with their own code if an advertiser beats your CPM input…if I got this right, this should be pretty interesting…very.

Allen.H

Reply to this comment
HMTKSteve said on February 28th, 2007 at 5:02 am

I wonder what the AdSense TOS says about this!

Reply to this comment
Allen.H said on February 28th, 2007 at 6:05 am

Adsense’s TOS can’t say anything about this. You’re not changing anything with the Adsense code, you’re simply choosing to serve or not serve Adsense ads at any given time.

Allen.H

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Ryan said on February 28th, 2007 at 6:27 am

As long as the other networks don’t have ads that look like AdSense ads then it shouldn’t be an issue.

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HMTKSteve said on February 28th, 2007 at 7:42 am

EXACTLY!

Google does not want your other ads to blend in as well as their do. This is where a problem may occur.

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Jonix said on February 28th, 2007 at 7:57 am

Don’t worry, the networks at rmx, are only images, way way different from adsense. There is no possibility of a confusion.

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Paul said on February 28th, 2007 at 5:25 am

So John, you’ve taken us through the process, now are you actually using the service on this blog? I know you’ve given us the screenshots, but did you actually end up using the system?

I love the principle, but don’t want to go through the rather involved process of learning how to use the application if the thing simply doesn’t work (for example, if Adsense always wins regardless).

Reply to this comment
Jonix said on February 28th, 2007 at 6:01 am

I’m using this on my blog for 1.5 months now, and i’m very happy with it. You just need to have good pageviews. RMX is a very good complement to google adsense.

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Saman Sadeghi said on February 28th, 2007 at 6:23 pm

Jonix,

I noticed that you only have Google ads running on your site - is that because Google is outbidding the others?

Reply to this comment
Aniela said on February 28th, 2007 at 6:46 am

I joined and will try it out, see how it works.
I’m reluctant to switch out my adsense yet, but am going to try it out !

Reply to this comment
Jonix said on February 28th, 2007 at 6:49 am

Don’t leave your adsense. Just use RMX has a complement to adsense. In that way you’ll see good results.

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Saman Sadeghi said on March 1st, 2007 at 7:28 am

Right, you don’t have to switch! If there is no one to outbid AdSense, it gets displayed normaly!

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Jez said on March 5th, 2007 at 12:51 am

I would love to try this but dont have the traffic to sign up with a lot of companies, are there any you would recommend for lower traffic sites, other than Adsense??

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Jez said on March 5th, 2007 at 12:54 am

Something else I was wondering, how does it get / know the cost of Adsense clicks???

I did not think it was possible to find this out, or is it just analysis of keywords in your page x a guess at what these words are likely to attract in terms of revenue??

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Kalle said on February 28th, 2007 at 7:05 am

Very interesting, got to try this. Thanks John!

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HMTKSteve said on February 28th, 2007 at 7:42 am

Will this work with the wonderful AdSense-Deluxe plugin all of us WordPress users use?

Will it work in a similar fashion?

Reply to this comment
Jonix said on February 28th, 2007 at 7:59 am

Yes. You can use the deluxe plugin not only for adsense, but any kind of media ads or networks that you want. adsense deluxe plugin is very effective and elastic

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lyndonmaxewell said on February 28th, 2007 at 7:44 am

I would have to give it a try soon to see how it works. It is good for things to be in your control, when you are big enough!

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Michael said on February 28th, 2007 at 11:01 am

So how’s it performing for you John? I tried it last year and they could only serve a handful of ads that (allegedly) beat my Adsense CPM. I gave them another go over the weekend and pulled it last night for the same reason.

Reply to this comment
John Chow said on February 28th, 2007 at 11:17 am

I’ve been accepted into 2 of their ad networks so far. Both have not been able to beat the Google eCPM. However, the cool thing is, if they can’t beat it, the system just keeps serving Google ads.

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lyndonmaxewell said on March 1st, 2007 at 4:55 am

Well, that is good then. But John, how often does the system ‘just keep serving’ Google ads?
If it is too often, then the program is not that useful afterall, isn’t it?

Reply to this comment
Michael said on March 1st, 2007 at 9:18 am

That is a good thing but what’s bad is that it’s often slow to display an ad. That’s another reason why I pulled it.

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Ronald Lewis said on February 28th, 2007 at 11:35 am

Very cool. I’m runnin’ to signup.

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Wendy Piersall :: eMom said on February 28th, 2007 at 12:11 pm

Though jealous of your multiple reviews, this one rocked - very informative and helpful - and a great product! Thanks!

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Stuart said on March 3rd, 2007 at 1:55 pm

some valuable info there. Thanks.

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Ashish Mohta said on March 4th, 2007 at 5:39 pm

@JC: If i place the code given by rmx, it doesnt show the adsense code if i have no network approval? Does it take time?

Reply to this comment
John Chow said on March 4th, 2007 at 5:44 pm

Ya, you need to have some networks approve you first. Otherwise it shows all PSA.

Reply to this comment
Ashish Mohta said on March 6th, 2007 at 8:13 am

@JC: About RMX after you get approved do you need to do something more or just sit and watch game.Please do tell.

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Ashish Mohta said on March 4th, 2007 at 5:50 pm

@JC: Thx for replying, PSA means public service adds right? moreover if i am not wrong you are using it , if thats true how much time it took for you ? coz i am worried if enable it for all my ad position i will loose my earnings from adsense till that time? so whats the best solution

I hope adsense has no problem with it

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Neda Crawford said on March 4th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

I do not have my site built yet nor have I any idea where to begin, but if I don’t do something I’m going to hit. I can write, I write for helium and I have several blogs. I am published as a poet but more than anything I have vision and I can see what others feel, and think which leads me to write about it and many different things. I’m very sincere in what I believe to be right and I tend to be out for the “Under Dog”. I truly dream of writing for a living and have had several offers from Publishing company’s that also have educational instruction like Longridgerider and Dorrance. The problem is money I don’t have the funds to go to school and learn the so called professional way to write.
I would appreciate it if you would just send me the info on the company you were speaking of(RMX) I believe it is, and I am going to do My best to try to turn my site into a blog site it is hosted with start logic and I haven’t built it yet so maybe I can look around a bit before I do and get some ideas from some of you all.
Thank you so much for making this public,
Neda Crawford

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Jez said on March 5th, 2007 at 12:53 am

20% $57 million is peanuts for Yahoo, Im sure they spent more than that on their own adds program

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Screen Rant Movie News said on March 6th, 2007 at 8:50 am

I’ve signed up and one problem I’ve found that they really need to address is the ability to use Media Guard on a per advertiser basis. You can filter out a lot of inappropriate content, but they have a huge backlog of unaudited ads.

If you let unaudited ads through, you will still get a ton of possibly inappropriate content on your site that you’re trying to block via there Media Guard settings because they haven’t gotten around to checking those ads yet. But if you block unaudited ads then you severely limit the number of ads shown and the eCPM drops dramatically.

Vic

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