Size, Focus, Puffery: Ad Serving Companies Revealed

BlueLithium, TribalFusion, Casale, Tacoda, Claria. To those outside the ad industry, and to some within, these names would lead one to believe we're talking about some new form of drug therapy intervention. In actuality, they are the names of ad serving companies, those wonderful, if difficult to define, operations that help deliver marketers online ads to websites that make sense for the advertiser. With all the buzz words these companies insist upon using, it's a wonder any of us in the industry have a clue as to the real modus operandi of these companies.

With the help of iMediaCommection's Jim Meskauskus, you need not feel like a clueless buffoon any longer. Jim has queried 14 of these companies with a series of questions geared towards helping us all understand just what these companies do, how big they are, who they target, why they're different from their competitors and what kind of ads they serve. So dig in and become an expert on ad serving. Or, at least become an expert at knowing what these companies want you to know versus what you might really want to know.