Turn brands itself as the first automatic targeting ad network. The company matches advertisers with publishers without using manual targeting or ad keywords, and they let advertisers bid on user actions for their own CPA pricing structures.
Here's how it works. Advertisers go to Turn and define their goals. Whether they're looking for a sale, a sales lead or just a site visit, they attach a price to each action. The advertiser then uploads all of their ads into the Turn system.
Turn analyzes the ads and drops them into its database. Then, they look at publisher's sites, analyzing the site content and any secondary databases such as user profiles.
The process is completed when Turn performs some statistical matching voodoo to put the ads onto the sites where they'll work the best. Turn is shooting for a deeper form of relevance than just keywords. Jim Barnett, Turn's CEO and chairman, formerly of Overture and AltaVista, says that Turn uses "smarter targeting" than traditional keyword advertising, and I think he's right. It's a pretty innovative way to match advertisers and site publishers. Whether or not it actually works and drives more clicks to advertisers remains to be seen.
