Pheedo CMO Bill Flitter offers the second in a three-part series for ReveNews on "How to Buy RSS Advertising," this time focusing on considerations for putting together a media plan and developing creative. He argues that the current state of RSS advertising is similar to that of internet advertising in 1996, when text was the state of the art - and is still in the case of RSS. He paints today's RSS user as a desirable demographic of early adopters age 18-34 with above-average income; he describes the channel as "crystal clear": 100 percent opt-in, micro-level targeted, always-on communication, and no spam or bounce issues.

RSS advertising tends to be targeted by content category (e.g., sports), sub-category (football), even micro-category (Green Bay Packers). Flitter advises that ads take not a search-style haiku form but instead give information, tell a story - because readers are sifting through information, which is what they're looking for and expecting. Ad length varies, depending in large part on the length of the RSS content summaries. And be ready to be edited by the publisher, who is likely super-conscious of ad content that may cause a feed subscriber to unsubscribe.

The limitation of RSS advertising include formatting, at present consisting of text and at best a supporting image - no flash or popups - with images sometimes not being served; total audience size is still limited; targeting is still experimental; and there is no consistent user interface (with 40-plus news aggregators in use), and no display standards. But it's only a matter of time before the market sorts itself out, with targeting becomes easier, creative becoming more robust, and the audience quickly growing.