NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Banner bartering
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Banner bartering
Kristine Loosley (kris_at_concentric.net)
Tue, 17 Mar 1998 06:57:47 -0800
Hi Dan! My experience with attempting bartering is similar to yours. While
some sites will do it, some will not. Those who won't/don't are worried,
for example, about de-valuing their SOLD inventory by giving away their
unsold inventory.
Secondly, many folks use their unsold inventory to self-promote. An
example would be a company like c-net that has gigantic inventory and some
unsold. If you watch the ads, you'll see ads for builder.com on news.com,
ads for SNAP! on download.com, etc. etc. This is smart -- why NOT cross
promote internal products with unsold inventory? Every click used generates
another page view on your site, so the cost is only the cost of serving the
page and the benefit is that you may, in fact, turn more than a single page
view.
Finally, it may be that the content you're offering (free web space)
competes in some way with what folks are doing. While I originally
considered contacting you to discuss barter, I quickly realized that I'd be
canibalizing our web hosting business if I ran ads for free web hosting on
my site. I know, it's different (you don't provide connectivity or DNS as
we do), but some % of the people would see it and say "wow, why do I need
Concentric's web hosting when I can get space free _at_ Fortune City?" The
truth is it ain't worth the headache/worry for a barter though if you'd
like to consider BUYING some ads <grin>.
As a side thought, consider trying to change the barter model to fit your
needs better. Perhaps since you have such a load of unsold inventory, you
could consider a different kind of model. Tell folks that for every
"citizen" who signs up for Fortune City as a result of ads on their site,
you'll give them 1000 free banners. If you can't track that, then consider
rewarding them by clickthrough rates. Tell them, for example, that for
every 500 visitors they send you you'll GUARANTEE that you'll send them
1000 visitors. You may be running their ads until August to deliver but at
least you'll solve your unsold inventory problem <grin>.
Kristine
Kristine Loosley
<kris_at_concentric.net>
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