June 9th, 2008
Healthline launches ad network
Healthline, which already acts as a third-party editorial provider to many health sites, is launching a third-party ad network.
I don’t see it as the next ValueClick or some monstrous blind network with tons of sites,” Healthline senior vice president for ad services John Lane told ZDNet. “I see it as a network that can meet the needs of our health related ad clients.”
The roll-out will be in three phases, Lane said:
- Publishing partners from companies where Healthline already has a relationship. Time Inc.’s relaunched Health.com is an example. “We were an integral part of their process. And they came into our ad network.”
- “Properties with great content that are health verticals, like Vitals.Com. “They do doctor and provider search.
So we can list doctors on their pages and know, by specialty, what are the medically relevant ads.” - “We plan to corner the market in condition specific sites. We could get 10-20 small diabetes sites. Our chief medical officer and informatics team will review them, but this lets us have 100s of thousands of sites.”
This last phase may be the most important. Lane said. Healthline’s ad technology is very lightweight, and any site which can take a Dart for Publisher (DFP) tag can be part of the network.
The process of evaluating sites will start as early as July, with Healthline looking for sites which have quality content which provide a suitable editorial environment to its ads.
“It’s no secret that blog sites and social networking sites have had a hard time monetizing their pages. As terrific as our network will be it’s not aimed at solving that problem.”
But if you like interstitials and other graphic ads on the pages of small sites, it will solve that problem.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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