Opportunity for Rep Firms?

I think rep firms can make a comeback.

Publishers are continuing to monetize through exchanges, regardless of how damaging it can be to their business in the long term.  They’re also juggling networks and trying to figure out which of the gazillion ad networks can get them the best return on inventory that otherwise might not sell.  All the while, nobody is putting up numbers like the direct sales force.

It used to be that several ad sellers were based in the old rep firm model.  Those sellers might represent several sites at once, but they held their publisher clients in higher esteem than an ad network might today.  And it worked.  That’s why it’s curious to me why rep firms aren’t as popular as they once were.  It could be that short-term growth pressure selects against them, since they’re tough to scale once salespeople are maxed out on the number of sites they can reliably represent.  But it’s an opportunity for a private businessperson who wants a steady business that can reliably generate a significant profit every year.

In any case, I think the uncertainty generated by the lack of price and data transparency in the arbitrage business might lead some publishers to be looking for rep firms rather than networks to join.  I’ve already gotten a few e-mails in response to my column – from publishers looking to know who the good rep firms are.  So maybe there’s more demand than one might think…