NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Adbot
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Adbot
Mark J. Welch, Esq. (markwelch_at_ca-probate.com)
Mon, 14 Jul 1997 08:50:14 -0700
Steven Heath quoted from an Adbot press release:
>> "High bids ranged from 55 cents CPM for Gaming
>> to $3 CPM for Search Engines & Directories.
>> Click-throughs sold for 6.8 cents a piece. "It amazes
>> me that some publishers who are not our customers
>> keep trying to get $20 to $50 CPM, even when
>> hardly any of their inventory sells," said Frith.
>
>Lets see, assuming you have 50,000 page viewers sold at 50 cents CPM (lets
>round up) you get a massive $25.
Keep in mind that AdBot is selling UNTARGETTED advertising
on sites that have been unable to sell their inventories elsewhere.
So this is the absolute bottom of the barrel. This is not unusual
as far as rates go: indeed, FlyCast is generating a $3 CPM through
its "blind buy" program, and there are no vendors who have
survived promising to pay for impressions (I keep getting email
from web sites complaining that IBN has added yet another new
retroactive condition and refused payment.)
I believe that $3 CPM is a fair rate for completely untargetted
advertising, and $0.55 CPM may be fair for certain sites.
Obviously, at $0.55 there is some doubt about whether the
ad revenue can even pay for the basic overhead (CPU and
bandwidth), without even looking at the cost to develop the
site's content.
Again and again, I recite the mantra: targetting, targetting,
targetting. It is TARGETTING that ads value: by slicing
up any existing inventory and reselling the demographic
slices, the yield from ANY web site can be increased,
assuming that the seller is able to minimize the transaction
costs. (See http://www.markwelch.com/adfuture.htm)
FlyCast appears to be designed to do this well, but so far
virtually all of their advertisers appear to be making 'blind
buys' at CPM rates of $1 to $3, rather than making use
of the system's targetting capabilities (or perhaps they are,
and I am simply not providing visitors with desirable
demographics).
LinkExchange is now beta-testing the use of subject-based
targetting, and has announced that it will add geographic
targetting soon (it's unclear what level of 'geographic' focus
they will provide -- conceivably, it might just be based on
domain suffix). Unfortunately, I have to admit that the
targetting has NOT improved performance. Likewise, I
must admit that SmartClicks, which I once praised as the
best example of the trend, is suffering from abysmal
performance, apparently due to "cheating." And Aaddzz,
which promises dynamic tracking and targetting, seems to
be destined for a long beta-test period if the number of
problems I've experienced is any guide. (Note that one
of the less promising ad networks, "Ad Exchange," has
just been put on the market, with Ron Khosla seeking to
sell the entire operation ASAP.) Maybe I'm wrong about
targetting?
I'd certainly like to hear from anyone who has had
positive results from any kind of targetted ad network.
-- Mark J. Welch (510) 462-8483 http://www.ca-probate.com/
-- Web Site Banner Ads (Networks, Brokers, Exchanges, Software, PSAs):
-- http://www.markwelch.com/bannerads.htm
-- Web Counters: http://www.markwelch.com/counter.htm
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