NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> Advertising in Online Newspapers?
ONLINE-ADS>> Advertising in Online Newspapers?
Mark J. Welch, Esq. (markwelch_at_ca-probate.com)
Wed, 23 Oct 1996 12:47:29 -0700
Our local newspaper chain (the Valley Times...Contra Costa
Times) has just started an online service called "HotCoCo"
(lousy name, I think), publishing the editorial from the
newspapers online. They started the online paper on 10/15
and there are still some kinks in it. (http://www.hotcoco.com)
I just spoke with the ad salesperson, who advised that
their advertising cost is a flat $600 for a 28-day increment.
He says they expect to have about 400-500 visitors per day,
but he has not yet seen any statistics for traffic to date
and advertising will not be sold based on impressions.
The ad format is a "large medallion" in the bottom left
frame (measuring 125x125), which automatically rotate once
per minute. For the $600 per month, you get three ad
placements (e.g. "sports," "news," and "food"). I haven't
yet received the rate package, so I don't know if they
guarantee that no more than X different ads will display
in a section.
In addition, they will not offer any demographic targetting
-- although they plan to sell the service as a subscription
service at $5 per month (free to people who sign up for
$25/month unlimited internet service through their provider).
I would not be willing to pay $600 per month to target the
same 500 people daily, although I would consider paying $600
per month if I believed there would be new visitors daily
(500 x 30 = 15,000 visitors, $600/15,000 is 4 cents per
impression).
I would certainly be more attracted to the notion of advertising
if I could target certain people -- for example, I would like
to target people over age 45 who live within 18 miles of my
office. (Age may be difficult if an account might be used
by multiple family members, but certainly the zip code can be
used with reasonable accuracy.)
Of course, to their credit, this online newspaper is providing
a very crisp demographic: its geographic area is a very high
income residential area, and the subset of internet users
among those people will be a VERY attractive income bracket.
Further, the newspapers have a fairly narrow geographic scope
(primarily in central Contra Costa County, with modest spread
in western Contra Costa County and in eastern Alameda County).
Am I asking too much when I ask for more demographic targetting
than that? (After all, if I buy an ad in the paper, I can
target just the local edition that reaches 4 or 5 cities.)
This newspaper chain is owned by Knight-Ridder, which also
owns the neighboring San Jose Mercury News, which seems to
be doing a good business in online sales. The ad rep said
that the Mercury-News also does not provide any type of
demographic targetting.
