NEW YORK - The Gay Ad Network launched Tuesday with advertisements by Allstate, Ford, eBay and Atlantis Events on more than 200 websites represented by more than two dozen online publishers.
The vertical online-advertising network focuses on the gay-and-lesbian market. It was founded by Mark Elderkin, a former president of online publisher PlanetOut and the founder and former chief executive officer of Gay.com. Elderkin now competes for ad sales against PlanetOut, which he left in 2006.
Elderkin said the Gay Ad Network is the second-largest player in gay online advertising. The site provides "an alternative to the main gay portal [for advertisers] and to Google Adwords [for publishers]," he said, adding that he founded the network to meet the gay online audience's need for resources for seeking out national advertising.
He said advertisers can be assured that their ads will appear in the appropriate environments: "Everything is booked manually. We select where we want the ads to appear."
The Gay Ad Network boasts advertising on the websites of several of the nation's top independent gay newspapers, including Philadelphia Gay News and Washington Blade. Other supporting publishers include RealJock.com, Genre Magazine, New York Blade, Out in America Network, Connexion.org, PrideSource, JustMen, GayOrbit, DataLounge and ProudParenting.
The network's technology platform and back-end infrastructure is powered by Adify, which is financially backed by companies such as Time Warner Investments and NBC Universal Inc. Adify is said to provide network-management services that are key in the execution of successful advertising campaigns, such as ad management, tracking, reporting, billing, payment and technical support.
