Tribal Fusion

Internet Ad Sales carefully excises the epidermi of three of the top ad networks and poke around their pulsating inner organs to see how they compare in terms of service, quality, payment terms, banner sizes and shapes, and overall user satisfaction.

Let’s see what Tribal Fusion have to say about themselves:

”Tribal Fusion is a Site Representation Company and Online Ad Network focused on high quality sites with targeted content and significant reach. We represent over 500 sites and serve 1.6 billion monthly impressions that reach over 65 million users each month.”

Managed by top brass formerly of Flycast / Engage and RealMedia, Tribal Fusion’s stated goal is to provide maximum targeting flexibility for advertisers, and thereby maximum revenue opportunity for publishers. President and CEO Dilip Dasilva designed and built Flycast and Engage Media’s ad serving systems, then took that experience, tempered with a keen awareness of the evolutionary nature of online
media, and designed and built Tribal Fusion’s ad serving solution. After
three years of operation, Tribal Fusion has carved a leading niche for itself in the representation of top-notch sites designed to attract the eyes of advertisers seeking high-quality traffic.

The sites represented by Tribal Fusion are individually segmented into category-specific ad spaces, then inserted into an extensive hierarchical categorization scheme with varying CPM rates. Overall CPM levels are consistently higher than many of the competing ad networks. Advertisers seem willing to pay this premium due to the overall high quality of site content and visitor traffic, as well as the low-risk testing and optimization options available. An advertiser can launch a test flight for as low as $25 – far less than the $1,000 minimum buy required by Fastclick.

From the website:

“The Tribal Fusion dynamic marketplace is a unique Internet advertising solution combining the three components considered critical to effective online media buying: enhanced content categorization, a web browser interface which gives the advertiser control over configuring and placing campaigns, and a fair, open pricing system based on simple supply and demand economics.”

Because Tribal Fusion’s network is both highly selective and relatively small sites may find achieving acceptance into the network a challenging task. Sites must present a wealth of solid content, a professional design, and a solid brand. Anything run-of-the-mill is unlikely to make it.

Service is exceptional, both rapid and highly professional. Tribal Fusion is clearly not a fly-by-night network, and its account managers possess a solid business sense and a keen appreciation for the needs of their publishers.

At first glance, the user interface for publishers, which shares many of the same features as that offered advertisers on the network, is a bit daunting, but on further exploration is proves highly flexible and informative. Unwanted ads may be blocked according to a wide collection of categories, such as pop-ups, gambling, flashing, warning, etc., as well as by domain – a bit more complicated than the point-and-click options offered by Fastclick and Burst, but certainly functional.

Default ads are run exactly as though one were purchasing an ad flight on the Tribal Fusion network. Traditional gif images with click-through URLs can be handled directly by the publisher. Rich media defaults require the intervention of an account manager for configuration, but in our experience this has proved rapid and painless.

Tribal Fusion deals mainly with 468x60 banners and pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials and floating ads, as well as a very limited supply of skyscraper inventory. Intrusive ads are capped to one display per user per day.

Reporting is excellent. The same interface provides access to daily, weekly, monthly, yearly statistics on revenue, default ads shown, campaigns shown, etc., with precise numbers of ad views and percentages of the total. It is thus quite easy to determine what types of advertisers appear to resonate best with your site. Missing appears to be CTR stats for individual ad campaigns, which would be helpful for publishers.

Tribal Fusion pays 55% of gross proceeds within 45 days after the end of the month (Net 45). Sites are required to provide at least 1,000 unique visitors per day for each ad space listed on the Tribal Fusion marketplace. We have not seen any complaints for late payment or non-payment of publishers.

If your website is a leader in its niche, tightly targeted, and fulfills the traffic requirements, we highly recommend Tribal Fusion. We believe the network provides probably the best opportunity for maximization of inventory in the 468x60 ad space, and would suggest placing Tribal Fusion at the top of your banner default chain.

• Impressions
  • 1,000 daily uniques
• CPM levels
  • RON, min. $1.00 (may be lower on large buys)
  • Category-targeted: $2.00 - $10
  • Site-targeted: publisher-defined
  • We’ve seen returns of over $2.50 pre-split.
• Sites
  • 500
• Reach
  • 1.6 billion monthly impressions, 65 million users
• Banners
  • 468x60, some skyscrapers, optional interstitial, capped
    pop-up and pop-unders.
• Rich Media
  • Yes

Visit Tribal Fusion