FastClick discusses ad network growth and quality (FSTC 2Q05 conf call quotes)

CEO Kurt Johnson discussed the growth of FastClick's (ticker: FSTC) ad network on his Q2 conference call. Amid his comments, he stated that during the quarter FastClick eliminated over 200 current members from its network and rejected 84% of the web sites that applied to join. The tone of his remarks was optimistic and upbeat, but this is almost the clearest acknowledgement of the extent of the adware/spyware/low-traffic-quality problem to date. Excerpts:

… We finished the second quarter with… a 17% growth in impression volume over Q1 of this year...

…we continued to experience record levels of publisher applications. However, of the more than 7,400 sites that applied to our network, we accepted only 16% as we continued our focus on adding only high-performing media that converts attractively for our advertisers. Moreover, we actively managed over 200 sites out of our network due to substandard performance.

… we are definitely not supply-constrained. To absorb this growth in inventory, we are adding new advertisers at a rapid clip, adding nearly 100 new advertisers… or a 13% increase quarter over quarter…

…we continued to maintain our number-three comScore MediaMetrics ranking for our network… we are larger than AOL Network and the MSN Network, who are number four and five, respectively.

…we retained more than 90% of our top 100 advertisers… with no single advertiser accounting for more than 10% of our total revenues.

We attribute this 13% sequential increase in advertisers to our sales team's success in developing agency relationships in key markets... these accounts tend to represent more branded dollars, and typically spend larger budgets during the later part of the year.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)

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