The slide above is one I've been sharing with a select number of people in the industry the past six months. However, Fred Wilson's blog this morning on his personal experience with the inequities inherent in the current digital media landscape inspired me to share it publicly now.
What is it? This is data from two weeks of a performance advertising campaign in the online education vertical.
What it shows is the problem existing in digital media that Fred called out. Unless solved, this value delta threatens to undermine the entire industry. The buy-side of the media landscape is capturing all the value of the media while the sell-side, the side where the value is being created with content & audience is getting played. Amazing, isn't it?
There a couple of other issues the data points out. One is the large margins ad networks are taking. The other is the large volume of clicks that never get to the landing page due to multiple re-directs. For those interested the only data layer added to this was basic geo-targeting.
Followers of my blog and those I've been speaking with since the Spring will know that I've become zealous about finding answers to this problem for publishers. Solutions will not be easy but they are possible. So with the momentum like only Fred can muster, and to paraphrase Mr. Jagger, "think the time is right for palace revolution."
jonathanmendezblog.com 
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