NEW YORK Social networking apps developer RockYou is rolling out a handful of new ad offerings as it looks to emerge the top seller of performance-based advertising on sites like MySpace and Facebook.
The Redwood City, Calif.-based company, best known for developing popular applications such as SuperWall on Facebook and a photo-sharing tool on MySpace, has been expanding into the ad network business of late. Between its own apps and other properties it represents, RockYou now claims to reach 130 million users worldwide, delivering 18 billion page views per month.
Now, the company, founded in 2006, is pushing into online video and behavioral targeting. It has introduced a new video-distribution option for advertisers that lets them reach consumers on MySpace, Facebook and YouTube in single buy.
According to Lisa Marino, RockYou's senior director of West Coast sales, the company is able to attach brands to "highly viral video content" produced for the Web by various bands, sports figures and movie stars, which in total can deliver up to 10 million video views per day. Brands can use IAB standard ad units for such sponsorships.
In addition, the company is going after the performance-based ad business in a big way, said Marino. RockYou is particularly bullish on its ability to develop high-performance campaigns for struggling auto advertisers. Marino said the company has recently been purchasing data from automotive sites and behavioral targeting firms in order to target in-market car buyers on Facebook and MySpace via its apps.
In fact, Marino -- who joined the company last June after previously serving as national sales manager for eBay Motors -- believes RockYou can now target such ready-to-buy users better than MySpace and Facebook can with their own targeting offerings. "That's just the tip of the iceberg," she said.
The company eventually plans to offer advertisers access to Prizm-like regional and demographic ad targeting, said Marino.
