Top Publishers Adopting Direct vs. Automated Ad Network Sales

ESPN becomes one of the first major publishers to drop ad networks as a means of selling advertising and not likely the last. Two sides have formed in the online advertising world - those who want to protect traditional, direct selling of premium content brands and the math-loving crowd that favors automation and data. Direct ad sales can attribute to a 2 to 3X premium on revenue and usually benefits the advertiser with tighter ad integration into the content. I think there is a clear opportunity for more publishers to capitalize on this direct ad sales trend and we will likely see this phenomenon move further down the tail into smaller and smaller niche publishers. See the Media Week article with further details on the story.