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Review of Federated Media
To discuss this program or provide feedback on this review, please visit the relevant forum thread linked to below (registration required to post). If you find this review and this site useful, do yourself a favour and sign up for our newsletter. Disclaimer: This review was compiled in June 2012, but this is the
internet and things change quickly (so this information is provided without
warranty). Forum discussion for Federated Media Federated Media REVIEW Federated Media Quick Facts:
Federated Media
Federated Media, also known simply as FM, is an ad network that provides ads to several high-profile publishers and is one of over a hundred such programs we review on experienced-people.co.uk. Their publishers are categorized in FM’s “business”, “living” and “technology” federations which are broad niche-specific groups. Federated Media has recently grown by leaps and bounds. Within the last quarter of 2011 FM bought Lijit networks Inc, a competing ad network and also landed an advertising partnership with WordPress.com, earning opt-in advertising representation rights to more than 24 million WordPress.com sites through their WordAds program. Since no third-party advertising is allowed on WordPress.com sites (with the exception of VIP blogs), FM’s WordAds is the only monetization option for these sites. They offer publishers a wide variety of ads to display. FM supports almost every IAB-compliant ad spec for most ads, supplementing them with some interesting, high-performance ads. Their STAMP high-impact ads change the whole look and feel of a publisher site and can include other aggressive marketing techniques such as roadblocks, site skins, pre-roll and custom-branded video opportunities, reaching impressive eCPMs. Another ad option is their “engagement ads”. These are interactive ad units offering consumers the opportunity to vote on a poll, write comments within the ad and get involved in other ways. FM also offers “social frame” ads which enhance advertising through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Surprisingly, the above information, (and actually most of the information in this very review) is not directly available to Federated Media publishers or publishers looking to join the network. Honestly, their official website is one of the worst we have ever seen! It is full of buzzwords, self-promotional burble and every other kind of hype imaginable while it contains depressingly little meaningful information for potential publishers. Seriously, no payment details, no setup specifications and no tech support details are provided throughout their website. So much so that publishers must don their detective hats and literally hunt for useful information in external sites! Not even the terms of use or any other contract details are divulged through their website and publishers must first apply to join to be given a chance to read the deal they are applying for! This is absurd (to put it mildly) and can be a major deal-breaker for many publishers such as the publisher in this online review who reports several worrying problems with the contract details she was given after she applied. All the while, smiling photos of successful FM publishers expanding on click to show self-promotional descriptions of their sites is the main dish of the publisher section in FM’s official website and the CVs in FM’s “leadership” section is arguably the most detailed and comprehensive read in their whole website! Their official blog is equally useless for publishers and reads like a bafflingly incomprehensible agglomeration of links and seemingly random commentaries on internet news. Their tech support is reportedly good but FM’s terrible official website manages to flop on that front too. The official website provides no means for publishers to communicate directly with their tech support specialists outside the publisher control dashboard! This means that you cannot contact support directly unless you are logged in and can potentially create profound problems for publishers who lost their passwords, or worse, whose accounts have been compromised! All in all we believe that Federated Media is not a bad ad network, not by a long shot, but unfortunately they do own by far the worst official website among ad networks of the same size. Even more troublesome is the complete lack of meaningful information for potential publishers, including the omission of essential data such as the program’s very own terms of use for publishers! In order to effectively monetize their websites, publishers must be well aware of the deal they are getting into. Federated Media gives publishers the details on what they are applying for only after they have applied and if this can be any indication of their whole attitude towards publishers then things look somewhat worrying. Read about other monetizing programs at experienced-people.co.uk/1200-make-money-from-websites/ and you can leave your own comments and feedback about Federated Media at our Federated Media forum thread. Found our site useful? Do yourself a favour, sign up for our newsletter.
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