Future of Online seminar: Prove your value to advertisers or you’re in big trouble

“Online supply is almost infinite – you have to prove your value to advertisers,” delegates heard at MediaTel Group’s Future of Online seminar on Friday. And it’s getting tougher by the day if the panel comments are representative of the online market.

Speaking from the panel, Ian Dowds, Specific Media’s UK vice president, told the audience that if “you cannot prove your value then you’re in big trouble”.

Simon Daglish, VP commercial director at Fox Interactive Media, was equally candid, predicting that numerous online sites will cease to exist as too many (including larger sites) are just not making any money.

OPera’s head of digital buying, Adam Pace, pointed out that oversupply of impressions has already had a massive impact on other media, with the increasing number of satellite channels and the rise of free newspapers, for example, driving down prices in their respective markets, and it has become a central difficulty for online now.

“I don’t know how the premium publishers will create a meaningful yield because there’s an oversupply of impressions and it will only get worse. It’s a problem for everyone except Google. There are too many media owners and it’s not good for the industry. There has to be an efficiency; you can’t have hundreds of sales points.”