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Ask YC: Review my startup, take two (ad exchange)

3 points by rksprst ↗ HN
I submitted my site here earlier and got some great feedback. Based on this feedback, I totally redesigned the site. I'd love to get some feedback on the new design!

The idea is that you host our ads, and in return you get to display ads on our network. It's a 1:1 ratio. Our ads are not meant to replace your adsense, but to complement it. (our ad units fits nicely next to a banner or skyscraper)

Site: www.adexchanged.com

5 comments

[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 41.2 ms ] thread
noodle
reminds me of banner exchanges in the 90's and early 00's.
rksprst
What happened to them? Why did they die off?
tstegart
Oh, so many reasons. There was a lot of crap online in the 90's, (not that that has changed at all), and you didn't get control over where your ad went. Both website owners and advertisers like control. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy. In an ad exchange, you're both an owner and an advertiser.

Basically, in an exchange, you don't get paid for ads that appear on your site, you get "paid" by your ad appearing on someone else's site. So if you're trying to make money on advertising, thats a problem, because there's no revenue involved. Also, you don't get to control where your ad appears, so its probably horribly targeted and not really doing any good. In this case, only some companies get help from display ads, not all companies will benefit equally.

Basically, people figured out that getting paid for ads on their site and then using that money for a targeted ad campaign (that comes with reporting, analytics, etc) on another site was worth more value than an ad exchange ever gave them.

ynd
I am looking for banner exchange sites for my startup.

Your site was interesting at first but there are two drawbacks.

You don't give free credits on registration. We want to use banner exchange to jumpstart our site. We don't have users. We want users. Without starting credits I have a cold start problem.

1 for 1 banner exchange doesn't solve my problem. I want to drive traffic to by newborn site. Another formula would be better.

randome
cool... how do you make money if everyone is doing a 1-1 swap???