About Social Media Today
Online advertisers are increasingly interested in targeting audiences with green affinities and publishers are aggregating traffic in order to provide compelling ways to do so.
August has seen a fury of acquisitions as publishers move to aggregate existing green traffic and extend their reach to other green sub-segments. Earlier this month Gaiam purchased both Lime, an eco site and green ad network, and Zaadz, a green social networking site. And less than two weeks ago, Cleantech purchased InsideGreentech.com. All of this consolidation activity follows Discovery’s acquisition of Treehugger, the leading green blogging site, at the beginning of the month.
Alternatively, online publishers are banding together to create green ad networks that provide media buyers with significant reach by bundling ad sales across multiple sites and through a single point of contact. As such, it came as little surprise this week when Adify announced the launch of its latest vertical network: green. While Adify’s green network is not ranked among comScore’s top 50 ad networks available to media buyers, with 4MM unique monthly visitors, Adify does debuts as the top green ad network around.
Today, there are at least ten green ad networks available to advertisers. Here is Marketing Green’s first annual Green Ad Network Ranking:
Network | Target Audience | Est. Monthly Unique Visitors |
| 1. Adify | Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) | 4MM2 |
| Sites/Networks: Green Ad Planet Network, Washington Post’s environmental blogroll, Matter Network, SustainLane Green Ad Network | ||
| 2. Green Ad Planet | LOHAS | 3MM+3 |
| Sites: LiveScience (1.4MM), Daves Garden (1MM), Hybrid Cars (0.1MM), Blohas, Cathy’s Crawly Composters, Cleantech Blog, , Eco Sherpa, EcoStreet, Green Harmony Tours, Green Living Tips, Green Maven, GreenBin, Greenedia, Greenona, , Inveslogic, KindWeb, Naturalpath, One Shade Greener, Organic Day, Our Hudson Valley Network, RiverWired, Tea Body’s, TenBees, TerraPass, Throwplace, Zaadz | ||
| 3. Lime1 | Broad | 2.3MM3 |
| Sites: Lime (1.8MM), Mongabay (0.3MM), EcoGeek, EcoSherpa, The Beauty Brains, Savvy Vegetarian, Eco-Chick | ||
| 4. GreenAds | Broad | 2MM3 |
| Sites: TreeHugger (1MM+), DrWeil (0.4MM), Grist Magazine (0.2MM), eMagazine (0.1MM), MetaEfficient | ||
| 5. Blogads | Broad | <2MM2 |
| Sites: Treehugger (1MM+), The Oil Drum (0.1MM), Inhabitat (0.1MM), EcoGeek, Life After the Oil Crash, PlanetSave, MetaEfficient, Ecorazzi, Groovy Green Blog, You Grow Girl, Garden Stew, Lighter Footstep, GetOutdoors Outdoor Blog, Jetson Green, GardenRant, Great Green Goods, About My Planet, The Good Human, Mighty Foods, green LA girl, Really Natural, Triple Pundit, Groovy Green Magazine, The Evangelist Ecologist, Green Options | ||
| Green Ad Works | LOHAS | 4 |
| Sites: NaturalPath, The Sunshine Chronicles, The Healing Mind, eConscious | ||
| Washington Post’s Environmental Blogroll | Broad | 4 |
| Sites: Great Green Goods, Nature Geezer | ||
| Matter Network | Investment professionals | 4 |
| Sites: Matter Network, TerraPass | ||
| SustainLane Green Ad Network | LOHAS | 4 |
| Sites: SustainLane, The Unsustainables | ||
| NooTouch (UK) | N/A | 4 |
| Sites: Ecologist Online, Hippy Shopper, New Consumer | ||
1 Does not include other Gaia community umbrella sites including Gaiam, Conscious Enlightenment and Zaadz
2 Reported in press release
3 Rough estimates based on sum of unique site traffic (from Compete) for key sites in network, assuming no more that 10% overlap of unique visitors across each site4 Limited traffic or limited visibility into network sites to estimate
NOTE: Marketing Green contacted each network as part of the research for this article. Marketing Green plans to update this posting as more ad networks respond to its inquiries over time.
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