ConnectedAds is an ad service that focuses on tracking the engagement of widgets on social networks (primarily Facebook it seems), as well as how much they are shared on other social media services like Twitter. Unlike many other ad services however, Clearspring's ConnectedAds is making full use of the wealth of information available on Facebook to target the ads. This could be a boon to advertisers looking to make social advertising pay off.[blippr id="338030" note="Clearspring" /]
How does Clearpring's ConnectedAds service work? It's based off of the Clearspring widget platform, which allows companies and advertisers to create widgets and distribute them across social platforms like MySpace, Facebook, and blogs. The key and the beauty to the ConnectedAds program is its social tracking and analytics.
ConnectedAds tracks not only widget installs and usage, but also the number of news feed items, comments, shares, and all of the major social media tools that spread items around on Facebook and across all of social media. This means a company can tweak and tool their campaigns based on these detailed metrics. For example, a movie trailer widget might especially benefit from tracking engagement because it's all about how many people click actually watch the trailer, not just load the widget.
This isn't Clearspring's first foray into social advertising either - last year, they joined forces with SplashCast to provide social advertising across its widget network. They also have worked with KickApps on social advertising and monetization.