Advertise Space - Blog Avertising » blog advertising

#1 Change up your creative often: This one is the most important, so I started with #1 first. ‘Ad blindness’ is a common fact with any type of advertising whether it is big billboard on the side of a building or an ad on the homepage of your website. Frequent visitors are going to notice something different about the site if you have a new advertiser with a new banner ad, once they have seen the ad several times or even several dozen times they will start to ignore it, moreover, actually not even see it anymore.

#2 Rotate different ads: This is an alternative to actually replacing an ad, try just rotation multiple ads in the one position. Most publishers should be able to rotate multiple creatives automatically for you within their ad server. Test out 4 different ads for a few weeks and use the one with the highest CTR on that site and others.

#3 Use tracking URL’s: If you’re not sure what traffic is coming from which ad, they you really won’t be able to tell which campaigns are effective. One simple software package is http://www.eztrackz.com/. At the very basic level at least create a reference tag (?ref=) for the URL you use for your ad campaigns. Anything after the question mark won’t affect the URL that the click goes to, but it will show up in your referral logs. (example: http://www.b5media.com?ref=advertisespace)

#4 Know the Blog: Make sure that the ‘readers’ of that blog are the right demographic for your product. Ask yourself ‘who reads this blog?” Sometimes the readers of the blog are more comprised of your competitors instead of your potential customers. Get as much information about the audience as you can.

#5 Get Above the Fold: Don’t get lost on the page, or way down the side bar. The majority of the blog readers are coming to the homepage, and reading the 1st post. If you can’t see your ad when the page first loads, neither can you customers.

#6 Don’t forget the value of branding: Every marketer is always so focused on clicks, CTR & CPC, but don’t forget about the ad impressions. Almost all forms of more traditional advertising are still about ‘how many people’ have actually seen your ad. Blog readers are a little more savvy than the average Internet user, so even though they may not be clicking as much, they do see your ad, and they are remembering your brand.

b5media Inc. Blog Advertising Network

7) Good bang for your buck: Most bloggers are part time and or just do it for a hobby, so any income is usually good income. You can get on some great blogs for as low as $50 or $100 a month. Try getting on Yahoo or MSN for $100. See if they return your email :)

6) Easy to get started: Most medium sized blogs now have an ‘Advertise with Us’ section with simple pricing and direct contact to the blogger/owner or blog network they are affiliated with.

5) Blog readers are power internet users: Blog readers spend a lot of time online, so if you are not marketing your product to them where they live, you are missing them completely. 44% of the readers of our video game channel spend more than 30 hours online each week. (I’m sure a lot of the left over hours are used playing video games :)

4) It elevates your products status: Let’s face it advertising says a lot about your product, and so does the medium by which you choose to promote it. Your product or service will seem a lot more cutting edge being promoted on blogs over the yellow pages.

3) Blogs tend to be read by other bloggers: A high percentage of blog readers actually have their own blogs. This one leads into my next 2 points and the last one being the key reason for advertising on blogs.

2) Bloggers are early adopters: Bloggers and blog readers are much higher on average to test out new technologies than that average internet reader. For example with the readers of b5media’s business channel, 78% own a laptop computer, 58% own an LCD or plasma TV, and 55% own a blackberry or iPhone. Those usage numbers are way higher than the average internet user and massive compared to the average TV viewer.

1) Bloggers are very influential: This is the big one. The powerful influencers are quickly shifting to the small voice. I’m not talking Oprah here, I’m talking about the single parent stay at home mom that loves the book, the 4 hour work week, and hates windows vista. Bloggers are generating dedicated readers and followers that not only test out or buy a product that they recommend, but the readers too are blogging about it. It’s a waterfall of influence if even one prominent blogger likes your product. I reference those to products, because that book popularity was spurn in the blogosphere and Vista was killed by it. Bloggers can make or break your product. Get in front of them early and let your product grow with them…

 -          Level 1: Bottom Level = Google AdSense.  Yes, even though I strongly dislike AdSense, it can be used to soak up and remnant ad inventory that you have on your site.   Google, the biggest pimp in the ad industry world, will take any traffic they can get which includes the international traffic that most ad networks avoid.  Average CPM = $1
Level 2: Affiliate programs:  Either directly from the supplier or through a network like Commission Junction affiliate programs are still one of the lowest forms of revenue you can generate from your blog.   For example if you have a video game blog and you link to Buy.com to purchase a PlayStation it might get you the odd sale, but the best way to do it, is to do a blog post on a very relevant product to your site, with an affiliate link to the offer.  (Use full discloser that the embedded link is an affiliate link as well)
-          Level 3:  Ad Networks.  ContextWeb, ValueClick, AdOn and hundreds of others.   There are loads of Ad networks out there that will re-sell your banner inventory for you and everyone you speak to will ‘guarantee’ the highest CPM’s in the industry, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of the ads they display on your site will be low quality and the fill rates may be only 25% - 50%.  Another thing about ad networks is most of them only want US traffic so they will push back any international traffic you get.  Average CPM’s $1-$2
-          Level 4:  Automated Text link Ads.  Yes, text link ads not only outperform AdSense, they blow away ad networks when it comes to eCPM’s as most text links are bought on a monthly fixed rate and not on a CPC basis.  The pure industry leader in this game is http://www.textlinkads.com  One thing is you should do is manually approve the links bought on your site to ensure that they are at least somewhat relevant.  The best part about TLA is the pure automation of it, set it and forget it.  And another wonderful thing is it will even continue to make money long after your audience moves on. ( A distant second in this field is TextLinkBrokers.com)  Average price $25 per link x 6-8 links
-          Level 5: Fixed Text link Ads:  These are the direct buys you get from someone contacting you about buying a fixed link on your site.  Don’t let Matt Cutts  find out your doing this J Average price $50 per link.
-          Level 6: Graphical Banner Ads:  Getting advertisers to buy ads on a CPM basis on your site that you yourself set.  Put together your own rate card and have it on your ‘Advertise with Us’ page. Anywhere from $5CPM to $20CPM. 
-          Level 7: Fixed Monthly Sponsors - Graphical or integrated:  The top of the food chain and the top of the money chain.  Getting a sponsor to pay a fixed flat monthly rate to have a graphical ad or an integrated ad on your site is the single highest paying and best option for your Blog.  Even one sponsor of your site, can potentially beat out all your other forms of revenue generations combined.  This one takes pounding the pavement and contacting relevant companies, but the payoff is sweet.  This is the Holy Grail…Good Luck.