John Chow has broken the story that Google has a ‘secret’ CPM advertising network called the ‘Google Display Advertising Network’ which is an invitation only impression based ad network for high profile advertisers and a select group of publishers.
It apparently lets publishers negotiate their own CPM (cost per thousand impressions) with Google with year long contracts. The ads are image and video ads.
Google already do run CPM ads in their AdSense system but John is reporting that the rates that he’s managed to negotiate on his ad units in this program make those ads the highest earning ads on his sites.
The program seems pretty basic at this stage – reports come in via email once a week with very little information – sounds like it could be some sort of beta test or at least a pretty embryonic new ad network – definitely one to watch though!
About Darren Rowse
My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like 
I like the idea of the CPM but the trouble with mentioning Google and a ‘secret’ group is that the idea of Google favoring certain companies i.e. ‘high stakes investors’ will be all over the forum boards now followed with complaints of unfair ad prices…Google just hury up and announce it.
An interesting development, and one following rapidly after the ‘soft launch’ of Google Ad Placement. I hope that some (if not all) of these features filter down to all publishers in due course!
Hmmm..Darren aren’t you being an insular blogger by not linking out to John Chow’s blog :)
Ooops – the downside of posting first thing in the morning.
fixed – thanks Paul.
I read about this on John’s blog yesterday, too bad that it is only for a certain blogs. :( Is this not what many advertisers do anyways…negotiate price? I thought that was what always happened. Does google have certain rates? (maybe I haven’t dug far enough into google.)
Sounds like a nice idea though, especially if it means more money for the bloggers as well.
[...] As first reported by John Chow and since reported by Darren Rowse, Google has a top secret advertising program called Google Display Advertising Network. [...]
We have to wait for the day they open to the masses. I guess this time around they’d be more prepared for the MFAs and crappy sites.