My Ad Revenue Plummets!

ValueClick ad deployment spoiled

[ratebeer]

I've recently seen my ad impressions and associated revenue from ValueClick cut by 50%. This is quite worrisome. I called ValueClick and they confirmed my impressions had dropped dramatically and offered the following two explanations.

1. SpyBot has ValueClick blacklisted
2. The latest XP Service Pack automatically blacklists major advertisers domains including ValueClick.com.

I asked if they had any solutions so that I could start making money again and the reply was no. Selling my ad space has been a real chore. I've already checked the following:

1. Google AdSense - Many problems. Not enough advertisers in my space. Too many PSAs. Very low click through prices. (No, I'm not porn or gambling. I run a beer enthusiast site.)

2. ClickSor - terrible technology brought down my site intemittently for a day and a half while I removed the ads then replaced them when I got a fixed signal from ClickSor only to have the problem return. They're out permanently.

3. TribalFusion -- Only could sell a fraction of my inventory. Did not have good CPM.

4. ValueClick -- Recently blacklisted and being blocked by SpyBot.

WHAT'S A PUBLISHER TO DO? PLEASE! ANY RECOMMENDATIONS?!?!?!

[growingdigital]

I think you are in between a rock and a hard spot. I don't know of a lot of opportunities for beer online. It sounds like you have done dilligence in checking out your options.

One consideration would be to go directly to vendors in your vertical and see if they want to advertise direct through your site?

[jasonlambert]

I agree with growingdigital. Your best course of action would be to sell directly to advertisers. Initially this will be a bit of hard work, BUT it can be VERY rewarding in terms of revenue.

Firstly, work out what country the majority of your visitors are from. Some webstat's programs do this for you, or you could implement something like GeoIP from Maxmind and write a manual script to analyise your log files.

Now you know where your visitors are from, you have a better idea which potential advertisers you should target. (eg, if 80% of your traffic is american, there is no point in trying to sell ad space to a french company that only sells products in france).

Produce a "media kit". Include a description of your site, why people visit your site, try to include some target demographic data as well, for example, average age of visitor etc. (run a survey on your site if you dont already know). Work out how much you want to charge, - i'll leave this up to you to figure out. Note down how many page impressions and unique visitors you get monthly.
Finally, collate all this information into your media kit, and email the marketing department for every company that sells anything related, beer supplies, home brew kits, novalty beer glasses etc. DONT spam it. Take the time to write personally to each company (though a rough template/outline would never hurt, providing it never comes across as templatey to the reader).

Keep a list of all the companies you have contacted (a simple spreadsheet will suffice), and note down when you first contacted them, and how the contact was made (email address, online form etc). I also find it handy to record the address or form URL.

If you dont hear back from any of them, follow up a week later, send another email, "hi, i sent you xyz last week.. did you get a chance to look over it? our special ad rate promotion ends soon so hurry if you want to take advantage of this great advertising deal..." etc. Note each follow up on your spreadsheet. (as well as any responses, maybe someone replies "come back to us in 6 months" (it happens)).

If you fail to get any advertisers from that then it is possible your overpriced, or its possible you havnt quite found the right companies. Keep trying, keep following up, and eventually it will pay off.
If you get too much interest (ie, demand outstrips your available inventory), you're undercharging, so bump up those prices the next time around :)