Re: Full Online Ads List Archive now online

From: Cliff Kurtzman <moderator_at_o-a.com>
Date: Thu 11 Jan 2007 23:06:45 -0600

Thanks everyone that wrote in with ideas about the design, both on
and off list.

I haven't decided what to do yet, but I'll offer some initial
observations and feedback.

I agree that the plethora of contextual ads is obtrusive and tacky.
It is particularly annoying that the Yahoo Publisher ads seem to be
repetitive and often unrelated to the content.

I did a fair bit of A/B testing between Yahoo Publisher and Google
ads on the main pages of the site some time ago, long before I set up
the archives. At the time, Yahoo Publisher provided a very
significant premium in terms of revenue, even though the ads appeared
repetitive and untargetted. However, those revenues have steadily
decreased over the past year, and I see no justification for sticking
with the Yahoo ads any longer.

A number of people complained about the "Large Rectangle" ads at the
top of the page. Again, I agree, they are most annoying and rather
tacky. Yet they account for the major portion of the revenue
generated (the one right in the middle of the home page is
particularly productive). A/B testing has demonstrated to me quite
clearly that this placement offers significant advantages in terms of
results. So far I've only tried text ads... A/B testing using graphic
and video ads is likely appropriate.

If I remove the Large Rectangle ads, the revenue from the other
banners on the site won't cover the basic out-of-pocket cost of my
keeping it online (discussion list mail server, high bandwidth
connection, web site hosting), much less the cost of my time to do
the M&A listing updates, which is not trivial.

My sense is that the cost of my getting advertisers for this site
directly would outweigh the value of such ads. When I was running an
online marketing company right in the middle of the industry, there
was a day when this list generated towards $100K/year in ad revenue.
My guess is that this site could easily do that again in the hands of
the right party with the right connections and synergistic resources,
and an interest in evolving the business model driving the site. But
in my hands alone today, given my other business commitments, that
just isn't going to happen.

The Industry Leaders directory on the sidebar actually does seem to
generate reasonable traffic for those companies listed there, taking
into account the price of the listing, which is fairly minimal, and
the fact that the traffic hitting those ads tends to be pre-filtered
to those looking for information related to online advertising. I
don't think I'd have any problem moving or redesigning the directory
as long as what I do with it provides at least equivalent
click-throughs.

I was hoping someone on the list would step forward and say "take
those horrid Yahoo ads off and put our stuff on the site instead, and
the site will look better and your revenues will improve." So far
that hasn't happened.

--Cliff

Clifford R. Kurtzman
CEO | Moderator
ADASTRO Incorporated | The Online Advertising Discussion List
http://www.adastro.com | http://www.o-a.com
(281) 480-6300


Received on Thu Jan 11 2007 - 23:06:45 CST