Popular political Web site Politico.com has partnered with Adify to launch an ad network and webproworld spoke to Roy Schwartz, VP of business development at Politico about the new ad network.

Schwartz said Politico launched an ad network because,”We had a number of partnerships with major newspapers to feature our content but we knew that given the revenue issues that many newspapers face they could probably not afford to pay directly for that content. At the same time our advertisers wanted increased reach directly due to our wealthy, well educated male demographic.”

 On selecting Adify to power the network Schwartz said,” We conducted some research that showed that other politics sites and sections had the same demographic. We then contacted Adify as the leader in creating vertical networks as the mechanism to help monetize our content.”
 

Initial members of the ad network include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Denver Post, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and news aggregator Breitbart.com. The network also includes more than 30 other major news outlets and Schwartz says there are a number of new partnerships pending.

Schwartz says he does not think there is an over saturation of ad networks. “The number of web sites is over 150MM – and ad networks will continue to provide value as aggregators of quality content on specific subjects – such as politics.”

He added,” There will be networks that thrive and networks that stumble within each topical space, but we are sure that Politico has a unique and compelling offer to both publishers and advertisers.”

The Politico Network will stand out according to Schwartz because, “Our demographics are better than finance or sports web sites when it comes to reaching wealthy, well educated men online.”

Commenting on the current political climate Schwartz said,”This is going to be an amazing election season and either way interest in the new administration will be at an all time high.”