- in a print publication there's no limit to how many advertisers can buy
a full page ad. The magazine just prints more pages. Most readers never
actually see any of those ads, but the advertiser is charged to own that piece
of paper, because that's the accepted advertising model in print.
- in a web publication, advertising works by providing boosted visibility
in targeted pages which are relevant to an advertiser and actually seen by
readers. Readers will only tolerate a limited number of banner ads on each
page (typically one - which may be repeated). Readers will also view a limited
number of pages in each session until they find what they're looking for. A
typical advertiser can easily afford to buy all the contextually relevant ad
slots for their product and lock out other advertisers from those pages. That's
what we call "targeted" advertising in our sales blurb.
Some
of our own web advertisers advertisers have had the same targeted pages in our
Sun publication since
1996, and our storage site for 2 to
3 years. As a publisher we offer resident advertisers the first option to renew
targeted ad slots, and because they work typically 3 to 5 times better than
run-of-site ads, the slots are rarely given up. We're happy as a publisher,
because we know we've sold 100% of our projected capacity of popular subject
pages upto several years ahead, and our advertisers are happy, because they get
good results from their ads and don't have to keep looking over their shoulder
at competitors.
Looking more widely than our own publications, you can
categorise most web advertising into the following categories:-
- exclusive slots - which are uniquely "owned" by a single
advertiser. Think of it like advertising on the front cover of a magazine. For
example in 1996 when I started advertising on AltaVista, they offered key word
advertising. If someone bought the keyword no-one else could use it. (They've
changed policies now.) Most of the banner advertisers on
STORAGEsearch during 1998 to 2001
were actually running page targeted ads which were exclusively owned by them.
That's not easily apparent to a reader, because the ads look exactly the same as
the run-of-site ads. The difference, to the advertiser, is that 100% of the
readers who access those pages, see their ads, instead of maybe 2% in the case
of a run of site banner ad.
- auctioned slots - where the prime position or keyword changes
dynamically based on what the advertiser is prepared to pay. The best exponent
of this is Overture. You'll find this
model mainly on general search-engines, because they cover a lot of markets, and
the auction process helps them reach an acceptable market price for capacity
which mostly goes unsold. This model is rare in B2B portals. Vertically focused
publications survive by achieving long term relationships within a limited pool
of advertisers. This is incompatible with an auction process, which would
encourage churn.
- democratic slots - where a prime ad slot is rotated equally between
a number of advertisers.
An example is our classified advertising
model in which a manufacturer is featured on our home page for at least one day
each month, and in other slots, such as our news page, appears at the top of the
page in a weekly rotation. I call those slots "democratic" because
that part of the package works in exactly the same way for a single advertiser
regardless of their total ad spend on other products like banner ads, sponsored
articles etc.
There are some exceptions to the general rule. For
example some savvy advertisers have actually purchased additional slots, so they
appear twice as often. But we limit this factor to no more than 2 slots for any
advertiser because our research shows that the effectiveness drops off after 2
days anyway.
- free for all - ad slots are freely available to all advertisers and
limited only by budget considerations and content compatibility. An example
would be run of site banner ads. Any suitable advertiser can buy as much
capacity as they can afford. There are some restrictions, however. I refuse to
accept ads for products which are not closely aligned to the products and
services which our readers are looking for. So for example you can't advertise
PCs on our Sun or storage sites. But that policy helps to make the whole
publication work better for readers and advertisers.
So what can
YOU do to avoid disappointment?
Talk to the publication at least 6
months before your product is due to launch. (You'd be surprised how many
potential advertisers I've had to turn away because their ideal slots had
already been sold upto a year before.) We're not like airlines, and don't bump
our customers. If we accept your ad order, we're not going to sell the same slot
to another company.
We know we're going to sell all the ad capacity
on those hot new technology slots anyway, so you won't be able to reserve
slots without making a commitment. But for example you could reserve a page
targeted ad slot upto 6 months ahead by ordering and paying for a minimum 20,000
impression ad with a start date "to be advised".
In the
meantime, before your product or ad is ready, we'll just run run-of-site banner
ads on those pages, like we're doing now, but you can be sure that no-one else
can grab those slots and lock you out. We typically need just 24 hours notice of
when your new banner is ready to run, and then it's all yours, and you'll get
first rights of refusal to renew those slots (or extend them) for as many years
as there is a market for those products. |
|
| |
 |
Advertising
on
STORAGEsearch |
| When
Cheaperbyte's sales manager said "Accelerate your storage sales",
he knew just the right way to do it. | |
