Next week, members of the CPX Interactive team will be attending ad:tech San Francisco 2010.  ad:tech is an interactive advertising and technology conference and exhibition with shows around the globe every year.  This year’s San Francisco show takes place April 19-21 at the Moscone Center North. CPX will be exhibiting at booth #5641.

Check out the conference schedule to learn more about the topics covered at the show, and read the ad:tech blog for special insight.

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Recently, CPX Interactive CEO & Co-Founder, Mike Seiman, spoke with the Long Island Exchange about utilizing local advertising.  He shared some tips for Long Island’s small and medium-size businesses looking to advertise online.

Tell us about CPX Interactive. Why do business owners come to CPX?

Mike Seiman: We’re an intermediary between advertisers and Internet publishers. We provide the technology and the service between both sides. We close the deal and have the technology to optimize and run the advertising campaign across the networks we work with.

How has the industry changed since you started the company?

Mike Seiman: It’s expanded a lot. There’s a lot more diversification. You have hundreds of thousands of websites, you have a lot more targeting capabilities, and people are interested in data and measuring the types of users. It’s gotten more intricate, more ROI-focused, and a lot more targeted. In the beginning, it was just: “Okay, let’s place an ad and see what happens.”

Read the rest of Mike’s interview here.

Rob Rasko, CPX’s COO & President, sat down with Jay Sears, EVP Strategic Products & Biz Dev at ContextWeb, at the IAB Leadership Meeting. Rasko and Sears discussed the concept of “coopetition,” and the growing importance of openness and inter-connectivity.  Sears believes real time decision making has played a major part in encouraging collaboration among industry players.  Attending events like the IAB Leadership Meeting helps people like Sears reconnect with partners and friends and see what’s going on in the industry.

This year, ContextWeb plans to open up the ASDAQ Exchange to more groups, including advertiser direct, agency, publishers as buyers, and small and middle market. They also want to do more with real time bidding, and continue to develop and implement their contextual technology, Sears said.

Rasko and Sears are both taking part in organizing an Ad Networks and Exchanges conference that will take place in New York in May.  They talked about one of the major points of discussion for that event: the future of the ad network. Sears believes that ad networks of the future will serve a variety of different purposes, and that the strongest will be willing and able to cater to the needs of different industry players.

According to President & CEO, Jarvis Coffin, it’s a busy place at BurstMedia these days, as people look to monetize greater portions of the Internet.  CPX Interactive’s COO & President, Rob Rasko sat down with Coffin at the IAB Leadership Meeting to talk about changes they expect to see in the industry in 2010. Coffin’s company is very comfortable with their longtime business model, principally representing long tail websites, and feels confident in their knowledge of the vast reaches of the Internet.

One of the hot button issues for 2010 is the concept of more intrusive advertising, as discussed in IAB Chairman, Dave Moore’s, keynote speech at the event. Coffin understands Moore’s message of thinking ambitiously and aggressively, but believes there is a middle ground. He stressed the importance of remembering that this is a consumer driven world, and therefore a common ground must be found in order for consumers to embrace the ad messages they see. Coffin also pointed out that it’s possible to be intrusive without being obnoxious, and he believes that the best way to stay on the right side of that line is by making creative a priority.  He sees targeting as an opportunity to be multidimensional, and put the message into context through strong creative.

Coffin and Rasko discussed the ad network race, in which Coffin feels the end user should be the winner. However, he thinks some work still needs to be done for that to be the case in the media business. Burst’s customers are publishers, and when Coffin takes a look at the value chain, he sees publishers getting less than what they deserve. This is something that needs to be corrected, and Coffin predicts publishers will take steps towards change, including starting to insist on fewer and fewer network relationships. Although the two leaders disagree on the value of exclusivity, they both see a marketplace with less ad network players as a positive in the future.

CPX COO & President, Rob Rasko, met up with GE’s Director of Global Strategy, Andy Markowitz, at the IAB Leadership Meeting to talk about changing the ecosystem, the idea of more aggressive advertising, innovative marketing techniques, and more.  Markowitz discussed the existing interest in digital within his group at GE, and that they will ultimately be charged with elevating practices and standards within the company. He plans to show people how to use technology to create more relevancy, both from a consumer standpoint, and a B2B standpoint.

Rasko and Markowitz discussed one of the major topics of conversation among IAB members: the growing tendency towards more aggressive, intrusive advertisements.  Markowitz is open to exploring new ways of doing things, and believes there should be tolerance for new formats, but he was also sure to point out that it’s not an all or nothing situation. In other words, an ad doesn’t have to either be totally aggressive or not at all. He stressed the importance of using creative wisely, as well as taking the opportunity to create better contextual relevancy.

In terms of innovative marketing techniques, Markowitz would like to see better idea generation. More specifically, he would love for marketers to come in to a meeting ready to lay out an idea for what they can do with one of his businesses right away, and the more relevant the idea, the better. He would also appreciate more of a focus on B2B in addition to B2C. Additionally, Markowitz sees data becoming increasingly more relevant and a bigger piece of the puzzle in the near future. Not only will it be helpful from the audience selection standpoint, but also in terms of the ability to mine data and understand the audience better.

After his keynote speech at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting last week, IAB Chairman Dave Moore took the time to speak with CPX COO & President, Rob Rasko.  Moore talked about the event, his first as chairman, and the great opportunity to network, exchange ideas, compare problems and seek solutions together.  He discussed the issue of self-regulation and the importance of educating legislators about how the Internet works, stressing that, especially in an economy that is still recovering, the last thing the industry needs is legislation that hurts business.

In addition to serving as Chairman for the IAB, Moore is also Chairman and Founder of 24/7 Real Media.  When asked how 24/7 plans to affect the market in 2010, Moore referred back to a prediction he made in his keynote: that demand side platforms would become a service to every major agency. He discussed 24/7’s position as the inventors of the first demand side platform, known as B3, before the term was even coined, and the growth that platform has already experienced. This year, they plan on continuing to play a major role in driving the WPP digital strategy.

Rasko asked Moore to weigh in on the importance of service versus technology, and he explained that the two are intertwined: technology drives the effectiveness of a product.  He also talked about integrating technologies and making them available on a seamless basis with the goal of being able to target as well, if not better, than anybody else in the industry.  Moore believes that this integration and seamlessness would also be extremely helpful in dealing with different types of ad formats. In terms of more intrusive ad formats, which continue to become more prevalent, Moore feels that consumers will become comfortable with them over time. He likens their initial dislike to the first time radio and television programs were interrupted by advertisements, and stresses that although it will be an adjustment, consumers will learn that they have to accept it if they want to continue to get content as inexpensively as they have been getting it in the past.

Touching on a couple of the things IAB President, Randall Rothenberg, talked about in his interview with Rasko, Moore discusses the Networks and Exchanges Committee and the issue of free versus premium content. He explains that the major objective of committee’s recently established guidelines is to give advertisers additional comfort and insurance that their ad is going to be run in the right type of environment for their product.  When it comes to pay walls, Moore supports premium content, and believes that providers need to find other ways to generate revenue outside of advertising. Destination sites, he says, need to figure out new and different ways to syndicate their content so they can reach greater audiences.

Overall, Moore is looking forward to the future. He calls this the beginning of the ‘Golden Age of Internet Advertising,’ and is very excited to be a part of it.

The following two videos are the first in an ongoing initiative called Online with CPX Interactive.  Learn about what makes CPX different, and the CEO’s ‘Elevator Pitch’ in these excerpts from a longer interview with our CEO, Mike Seiman.

What Makes CPX Interactive Different?

The CEO’s ‘Elevator Pitch’

Last year, US online ad spending faced the first decrease since 2002. But, industry experts predict that these numbers will rebound in 2o10, as the economy becomes more stable.

Despite the decrease in online advertising spending in the US in 2009, online advertising still continued to grow as a percent of total ad spending. This trend is predicted to continue into the foreseeable future.

This has been a very exciting year for CPX Interactive! Here’s a look back at the highlights of 2009:

Offerings:

• Earlier this year, we developed CPXpi, a software solution to allow Domainers URL level insight into their portfolios.
• In April, CPX announced the addition of Careers, Real Estate and Hispanic verticals to our Content Network offering.
• Just this month, we released the first information about CPX adROIt, our proprietary ad management platform, set to launch early next year.

Growth:

• In June, we opened our new Manhattan office.
• We expanded the role of our philanthropic division, CPXample, using the reach of our network to drive traffic to a new website: CPXample.org.
• This year, CPX established a social media presence, becoming active on sites like Twitter and Facebook, and revamping our blogging strategy to include the CPX Ad Network Blog.

Recognition:

• CPX’s CEO and Co-Founder, Mike Seiman, was named a finalist for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Metro New York Region.
• We received two SAM awards from Advertising Age Magazine, given for brand and messaging recognition observed through reader surveys.
• CPX Interactive made the Inc. 500 list for the second year in a row, and was also recognized on regional and industry specific lists.

CPX Interactive has had quite the year, and we are looking forward to many more milestones and accomplishments in 2010!

CPX Interactive wishes you and yours a very happy holiday season!  Check out our special holiday card, and be sure to play Balls of Snow, CPX’s addicting winter-themed game!