Last week I was briefed on the new online advertising platform that Tumri is launching today. Flush with $16.5 million in investment and already well covered by business tech blogs, Tumri is building out a widget-based Merchandising Network that it hopes will be The Next Big Thing in online advertising - after Google Adsense. Tumri Advertiser aims to combine brand marketing with products and offers in a single advertising widget.
Essentially Tumri enables advertisers to build "AdPods", which are e-commerce widgets. Publishers can then insert these widgets onto their websites, in the hope of earning money. The advantage for advertisers is that they can insert their brand into these widgets, which then get distributed across the Web. With the new Advertiser platform, Tumri says it gives more control to the advertiser - including controlling the brand and tracking performance. Tumri says that their platform enables advertisers to combine different merchandising feeds with branding, in their AdPods. The technology to do all of this is patent-pending and Tumri claims it is "differentiated technology in ad targeting and personalization". Here is the process:
I was curious why Tumri is calling their product an AdPod, instead of just plain old 'widget' (which although ungainly, is at least an accepted term). Tumri told me that the capability of their AdPod is a lot richer than a normal widget; and the level of interactivity is more than other ads. I was also informed that AdPods can process feeds semantically too - e.g. promotions.
My next question was whether Tumri's AdPods will eventually enable transaction processing from within the widget. Right now, consumers need to click through to the retailer's website to complete a transaction (ref: number 7 in diagram above). Tumri told me that it is technologically not difficult to process transactions inside the widget, but there are issues around credit card processing which make it not do-able now.
Overall, Tumri aims to "increase the performance of advertising" for advertisers - meaning more data, better return on investment, more flexibility with branding, etc. What's more, they claim to be able to do all of this on-the-fly. Advertisers on board already include Macy's, Wal-Mart and Sears. It remains to be seen how Tumri's product performs - the proof will be in the pudding for advertisers - but you have to admire Tumri's ambition. And with $16.5M in funding already, they are putting a lot of money into this vision.
Here are some initial screenshots. What do you think of Tumri's product?
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Tumri Advertiser Launched - Aims to be Adsense 2.0.
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So this seems to be a pre-build widget that can be configured to specific retailers needs. And it is already accepting or will accept RSS feed as an update. On the surface it is not obvious what is different between this and, for example, Federated Media (nuances aside).
Alex
Posted by: Alex Iskold | June 10, 2007 9:41 PMBanners. Its banners. Maybe they are better banners, but still banners.
Posted by: talboito | June 10, 2007 11:44 PMA widget in my mind enables some type of higher level of user engagement. I only see backend applications here for updating creative but based on what, guessing? Though the performance transparency is nice if this doesn’t have an automated optimization engine attached to it I don’t see how it advances anything. In any case, banners are the last pixel space on a page that users are likely to engage.
Posted by: Jonathan Mendez | June 11, 2007 5:26 AMI am sure there are some unique platform differences and marketing angle Tumri is trying to differentiate from competitors, but would the audience and the publishers understand these differences. And, if not, what is their value-add proposition over similar widget ads from chitika, ebay or amazon? IMO, building a successful ad network isn't about who's in control. Advertisers will always want more control over their products, services and brands. And same goes for the publishers. But without distribution, there is no gold for anyone.
Posted by: soxiam | June 11, 2007 7:39 AMGreat Post. A very clear explanation of a complicated service.
This looks to me like a version of Commission Junction, with some more sophisticated systems. If I were a leader in affiliate advertising, such as Commission Junction, I would study this service carefully, determine what is new or more sophisticated than my existing platform and move quickly to incorporate my own version of these capabilities.
Yes, this looks like it has some new features. But, aside from all of the issues associated with building a giant coop (that matches advertisers and publishers) Tumri's success may well depend on how existing maket participants, in particular Commmission Junction, react (or not).
Bruce Judson
Posted by: Bruce Judson | June 11, 2007 8:08 AMhttp://www.VenturesWithoutCapital.com
What Tumri does is captured in the following interview:
http://blogs.mediapost.com/behavioral_insider/?p=162
We at Tumri believe that the only way advertising can be effective is, if it is:
a) Targeted => Relevant
b) Engaging => User can interact with it, and say what they would like to see
c) Converting => If there is ROI for the folks that are spending money, then it is good for one and all.
Building a successful ad network is about all of the above and yes - it is about distribution. We are working on the idea that we can certainly gain massive distribution by building scalable technology that is relevant, and one that provides the greatest deal of control to publishers and advertisers.
Hope this clears it up a bit? We appreciate your interest in our service and the market.
- Pradeep Javangula, CTO @ Tumri
Posted by: Pradeep Javangula | June 11, 2007 8:49 AMd) Distribution => Without being where the intention in the interaction roi comes up short. It's NOT about scalability, it's about quality, not quantity.
I think I'll stick to my patent-pending model, seems to be more unique then this one as stated above. This seems like a cool idea but the execution is saturated with similar or better models, because soon, everyone will get blipd!
Posted by: Ty Graham | June 11, 2007 12:39 PMHi Ty,
Your comment is very interesting, and I am not entirely sure I understand the statement - "intention in the interaction ROI comes up short". If you wouldn't mind, please elaborate in an email to me at pradeepj@tumri.com.
As for the scalability issues, some of it is certainly about quality that determines ROI. But, there is too much inventory that is under-monetized and the only way to approach it is through scalable technology and an optimization framework. We certainly believe that there are big opportunities here, and the carefully crafted campaign management by other advertising networks don't scale well.
There is so much inventory out there that is about qualification of the audience, theme and historical performance that this is about using scalable technology as in the case of social networking sites, long tail web sites, media sharing sites et al.
So, the approach here is one of creating technology and an optimization framework that progressively moves toward improved monetization. This is the system that we have filed patents for, and are working on diligently. The ultimate judge is CTR and eCPM in any of these models.
Would definitely love to know more about your model.
--pradeep
--pradeep
Posted by: Pradeep Javangula | June 12, 2007 12:07 AMTumri's products are way slicker than anything comparable I've seen. Can't wait to try them out!
Posted by: sarasmile | June 24, 2007 12:28 PM