Self-serve is helpful but not really mainstream at this point, according to Warren Kay, Fox Audience Networks VP of Local Sales. Kay spoke on a panel at ILM:09 that also included iPromote CEO Michael Barr, AdReady Chairman Aaron Finn and PaperG CEO Victor Wong.
Noting that FAN has 35,000 advertisers ranging from national advertisers to small businesses, Kay said that self-serve is an excellent way to attract endemic advertisers for a particular site. “We see self serve can attract advertisers,” said Kay. He added that Fox has 15,000 + SMBs using Fox’s MyAds self-serve product, which launched a year ago, while Kay was still running local sales at Yahoo.
Yet, Kay added that he certainly doesn’t believe “build it and they will come” notion that self serve populates itself. “It is a little misguided,” he said, suggesting that for most categories, there is really no substitute for good old fashioned sales –especially sales that can leverage Fox’s extensive customer data, which can be used for more effective targeting. Nevertheless, he believes that self- serve has a “longer tail” and remains “a dynamic solution.”