There's a lot going on with online advertising, and even though the curiosity from the marketing end has lent itself to some pretty interesting experiments with online campaigns (think widgets, sponsored chat rooms, etc.), the spending for online marketing is still very low in comparison to television, radio and print advertising methods.
AdBrite is hoping to help shift the attitude towards online advertising, and it's targeting a specific portion of the music industry to move this shift along.
How, you ask?
By providing tailored tracking and metrics for special ad campaigns. This is done in partnership with Live Nation (with which Madonna recently signed a tour deal), and the two companies are joining forces to launch the Live Nation eFan Finder. This is a proprietary service that heps concert promoters, artist managers and agents track their online advertising campaigns. If promoters see how well their campaigns are doing online, then they'll spend more money with online advertising, through networks like AdBrite.
It appears as though AdBrite chose the concert search sector for this particular program because of the search to advertising ratio that already exists. According to AdBrite, the majority of concert-goers find out about live performances by doing a web search, but the advertising dollars are still going to areas other than online marketing.
In simplifying the marketing process while showing how well it works, AdBrite is hoping to really lock in some clients with this particular program. Additionally, this deal speaks to the online advertising industry's necessity to custom fit certain plans for various types of customers, which is a trend that PopularMedia is also taking up, on a broader scale but with particular methods for marketing a brand.