AnchorFree CEO: Hotspot Local Ad Network Beats Google, Yahoo, INTERVIEW
The future of all varieties of local search will be analyzed, debated and predicted over three days of The Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media Conference set for Los Angeles, post-Thanksgiving holiday.
I am a five year, multidisciplinary veteran of the Kelsey local intensives: From academic analyst, to startup entrepreneur, to professional blogger, I have experienced the annual event for interactive local media execs and local search practitioners from all angles and always look forward to the high-level local pow-wows.
This year, I have the pleasure of joining the Kelsey Group analysts on stage to wrap up the three-day local meetup in helping evaluate if we are in the midst of a local revolution, or an evolution.
Local media play AnchorFree, for one, would undoubtedly vote for local revolution, thanks to its ”hotspot media network.”
I met AnchorFree co-founder and CEO David Gorodyansky, and team, at the Ad-Tech conference in New York City earlier this month when the Silicon Valley based startup hosted a Silicon Alley Happy Hour. While many Ad-Tech exhibitors laid claim to the latest and greatest ad network innovations, the AnchorFree value proposition is indeed compelling:
The largest Hotspot media network, representing more than 10,000 Hotspot locations, generating more than 400 million page views through five million user sessions per month. The location-based ad network is a new marketing channel for brand and direct response marketers to deliver interactive, timely and targeted advertisements to laptop and mobile device users when they are away from the home or office.
What is so “revolutionary” about the AnchorFree ad network? In a telephone interview this week, Gorodyansky proudly told me his company can target local ads better than Google and Yahoo! As the leading search engines rely on IP addresses for ad serving precision, both Google and Yahoo work under 30% to 50% margins of error, Gorodyansky indicated.
AnchorFree serves ads “pinpointed to street level location,” Gorodyansky told me. AnchorFree may even be able to target Yahoo local ads better than Yahoo itself; AnchorFree has an ad sales and delivery partnership with the number two search engine:
Advertisers are guaranteed 100% accurate location-based targeting, as AnchorFree’s geo-targeting capabilities are based on the access location of the consumer, and not on the less reliable ISP data.
The AnchorFree sales pitch: “We connect advertisers with millions of consumers in a captive, persistent manner that is highly measurable and geo-targeted to users’ exact locations. Any business, from coffee shops and restaurants to hotels, airports and malls, can leverage the AnchorFree network to offer their patrons free Internet access while generating new revenues with no financial investments required.”
AnchorFree aims to build a nationwide broadband advertising network providing 1-to-1 connections with attentive consumers, Gorodyansky told me. Whats more, the out-of-home laptop and wireless device users that engage with AnchorFree’s free-to-the-consumer, ad-supported hotspot network, are highly desirable to brand and direct marketers, Gorodyansky indicated.
Brands currently running across the AnchorFree network include American Express, AirTran, Circuit City, Clorox, Ford…AnchorFree commands CPMs of about $12.50.
While Gorodyyansky hails the local advertising appeal of its service for the media business, AnchorFree also sees its mission as revolutionary for the world at large:
The company enables a grass roots movement of thousands of locations around the world that come together into the largest public, ad-supported Wi-Fi community.
AnchorFree’s hotspot concept does sound “hot.” The hot local space nevertheless has lots of companies vying for “revolutionary” honors.
Dozens of other prospectively “hot” local plays are unbdoubtedly gearing up to make their own best advertising and/or technology cases to the hundreds of local decision makers set to convene in Los Angeles from November 28 to 30!
SEE YOU THERE? BE SURE TO STAY TO THE VERY END! CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN
MORE INSIDER CHATTER CEO INTERVIEWS: MerchantCircle CEO Aims To Disrupt Local Advertising $39 billion Spend: INTERVIEW AND Stepan Pachikov: EverNote Web 2.0 Perfect Mobile Storm To Hit in 2008, INTERVIEW
UPDATE: CBS To AnchorFree WiFi: WE Own The Ad Billboard, Online AND Off