1
What Runs Where Gets a Makeover & Upgrade
2
What Runs Where Review – 100% Verified Data Whoring Machine

What Runs Where Gets a Makeover & Upgrade

What Runs Where is a competitive analysis tool that many of you will be familiar with.

It’s one of the most popular research tools in the affiliate space. If you are involved with any kind of banner buying or advertising on the Google Content Network, What Runs Where is a one stop shop for all the campaign ideas you could ever need.

I gave it a positive review last year, but I had a few complaints about the interface. I saw it as unnecessarily complicated and confusing for a media buying newbie.

There was no shortage of mesmerizing data, but the software was low on shiny, whimsical bells and whistles. Presentation isn’t everything, but it certainly makes life easier when you’re plunging through mountains of data and numbers.

Well, it turns out the What Runs Where team has taken that complaint onboard. The software has recently been upgraded with a brand spunking new interface.

It’s looking really good.

What Runs Where

What Runs Where now supports an additional three countries; Spain, Germany and France; to go with the previous collection of America, Canada, Australia and the UK.

The new targeting is particularly helpful for offers that dominate in European markets, like the Need For Speed example above.

Not only can you spy on prime sources of European traffic, but you can swipe readily translated creatives for your own testing purposes.

Of course, in the interest of not being a total dickbag, let me remind you…

Stealing is bad, kids.

Use What Runs Where to pinpoint the market trends, and then create something better.

Running the same creatives on the same traffic sources is only ever going to leave you two steps behind somebody much richer than yourself. That said, this is probably the single most effective tool for digging data from right under the fingernails of your competition.

Another welcome new addition to What Runs Where is placement suggestions. It’s the first in a series of so-called ‘actionable insights’ that will be landing in the future.

Placement suggestions sifts through what I can only imagine to be a nuclear-sized wasteland of data remnants. It looks at an advertiser’s existing placements and then suggests additional placements based on that data. I’m not sure how accurate – or how profitable – the internal algorithm is, but at first glance it looks very useful.

If I were to search through Christian Mingle’s placements, for example, I would find a huge list of sites that the merchant is currently targeting. By using placement suggestions, I can find alternatives – ranked by similarity – that aren’t currently being targeted.

This looks like a great tool for steering clear of competition. I’ve already found some niche, off-the-wall placements, that I’m in discussion to place small buys with.

What Runs Where is a data-beast. That much was known before. It’s encouraging to see that the team are taking active steps to turn their huge hoard of data in to insights and actual campaign suggestions.

I still think there’s potential to go further and give more meaning to the data. The algorithms are clearly powerful and effective, but little is said of how numerical ratings such as Similarity and AdStrength are calculated. I think it would be awesome if these terms were explained and perhaps graphed and documented to shed new meaning.

All things considered though, What Runs Where is still the honeybadger of all affiliate research tools. A must-have data slayer for anybody involved with media buying.

Recommended This Week

What Runs Where Review – 100% Verified Data Whoring Machine

How do I even begin to review What Runs Where? This is the rabbit hole of all software releases for 2011.

I’ll start by giving you the basics. What Runs Where is a competitive intelligence service for online media buyers. The hook is to discover new traffic sources, to become more efficient at monetizing your existing campaigns, and to open your eyes to a simply mind-boggling data dump of what your competitors are up to.

Spying on competition seems to be one of 2011’s hottest angles for marketing products. I’ve already reviewed several other products, all aiming to make our ‘creative process’ less troublesome. The difference with What Runs Where is scale.

It all looked so simple when I first logged in.

A nicely tiled interface allowing me to search through the most popular (and most relevant) adverts on 18 of the largest display networks – as well as 6 text ad networks.

And then I clicked through to view some data. And then I clicked through to view some more data. Before you know it, I’ve clicked through about seven times and the What Runs Where software is tracing everything from the entire banner portfolio of True.com, to the exact eye colour of the bastard who keeps outbidding me on TribalFusion.

This thing is a well oiled data whoring machine. And there lies it’s greatest strength and biggest weakness. To get the most out of What Runs Where, you have to be able to handle lots of data. You have to practically thrive on it like some kind of sick perverted numbers freak. There’s a lot to take in, and I can see how the fledgling baby affiliate could be swept under within minutes.

Let’s take a look at what you can analyse…

If you’re short on inspiration, you can use the What Runs Where system as a means of researching the most popular banner ads by strength, relevancy or recency on any of the following platforms:

Google Image Ads, 247 Real Media, ContextWeb, ValueClick, Tribal Fusion, Blue Lithium, BuySellAds, Rubicon Project, Adbrite, Technorati Media, Burst Media, Advertising.com, Interclick, Zedo, XTend Media, Undertone Ads, Specific Media and Harren Media.

And then you have your popular text ad platforms:

Adwords Content Network, MSN Content Network, Adside, Pulse360, AdBlade, Adsonar.

I know many affiliates feel naked and lost if they’re forced out of their comfort zone (Facebook and Plentyoffish), but these traffic sources are where the big money is made – particularly if you’re dabbling in rebills.

If you’re in research mode, you can use What Runs Where to assess the ads that are likely to work on each of those traffic sources. But that would be purely skimming the surface. The real value, in my opinion, is in the ability to perform searches for particular advertisers and to see the most popular placements on any given site.

If I run a search for True.com, I can uncover a huge number of banners that have been used to promote the site. Here’s a tiny sample:

What Runs Where Review 1

Fair enough, it’s nice to see which banners are popular. But what I really want to see is the traffic sources and specific placements that have proven to be the most successful over time.

What Runs Where Review 2

What Runs Where 3

This information gives me some food for thought over suitable placements in a similar campaign. Christ, if I was running PPV, I’d have more than enough targets to keep myself busy. But it’s not quite giving me the complete picture. How do I know which ads are most suitable for each placement?

Now where the data really gets interesting is when you start cross-checking ads that have appeared in a particular placement. Let’s say I want to buy some banner space on TheFreeSite.com, I can use What Runs Where to perform a seperate placement analysis.

What Runs Where Review 4

(I’ve purposefully chosen a very broad target…)

This gives me the breakdown of just about every advertiser that has been spotted on the site. If I want to see more recent placements, I can adjust the slider. I can also view the top banner ads on this single placement, as well as the strongest ad texts. Has one banner been hogging 50% of the impressions? What traffic source does it come from? All this data is at my fingertips, and it’s enough to make me slightly nauseous.

The data pool is truly gigantic. You can easily lose a couple of hours sifting through it.

So what can be improved?

The software currently tracks ads in four countries: United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. This should keep most of you happy. But for advertisers like myself – those who have departed the popular English speaking regions in favour of dirty Eurotrash campaigns and the odd cheeky Brazilian – I would definitely like to see some Euro inventory added.

I also think the interface could be given a once-over and sprinkled with some explanations of how scores are calculated. Strength is annotated as a number, and while I’m sure the tech guys have perfectly valid logic in ranking the ads as they do, it could be made clearer.

Much of the data meaning has to be assessed relatively by looking at more data. If the team could find a way of leading lambs such as myself to the ‘opportunities’ rather than more numbers, it would open up the software to a whole new realm of buyers. They have a hell of a lot of features, it’s just rebranding a few of them as benefits that will convert this thing in to an unslayable savage donkey beast.

What Runs Where isn’t going to turn a bad affiliate marketer in to a rich affiliate marketer. You’re kidding yourself if you buy this thing expecting it to churn out profitable campaigns while you swing lackadaisically in the hammock.

And while it is by far the most sophisticated ad spying software I’ve yet to come across, it’s also tied to the same limitations as it’s many rivals – you, the user, have to turn that data in to a competitive advantage. It won’t appear by magic.

If I had to pull a metaphor out of my arse, I would compare the software to a very deep bucket full of jigsaw pieces. Inside, you will find just about every component of that one lucrative campaign you’ve always dreamed of. But to put the pieces together, you’re going to have to insert yourself balls-deep in to a matrix of data – some of which will take you a few days to properly understand.

If you’re a regular media buyer, or looking to venture that way, What Runs Where is a must-have. I’d recommend it to intermediate affiliates, and anybody with an interest in display advertising.

The Good News…

Now, you may have already heard, but What Runs Where has just opened up a special $1 trial package. If you have any doubts, or simply want to take the software for a test spin, quit reading my drivel and go see it for yourself. Best of British to you, have a good weekend!

Recommended This Week

  • For those of you who advertise on Facebook, Premium Posts Volume 2 splurges over 70 pages of my tips, techniques and strategies for conquering Zuckerberg’s monster. I’m confident you’ll get a lot out of it, including some much better traffic sources for our gaming offer example above!

  • If you’re a new reader, please add me to your RSS. Also follow me on Twitter. Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2009-.