To finance the service, Google will display advertising links tied to the topics discussed within the e-mails. For instance, an e-mail inquiring about an upcoming concert might include an ad from a ticket agency.
This got me thinking again about PPC. (and this turned into another long morning post...)
In any place I advertise except PPC, people will jump through hoops for my dollars, and if I disagree with something and lay down an ultimatum, the majority of the time, they cave as they want my check.
PPC is the only place where the medium is totally controlled by the party serving the advertising and not the actual advertisers.
A lot of people have mixed feelings about AdSense, and some of G's other partner sites.
G has shown its ability to continue to expand, AdWords in email is quite a step.
I would very much like G to make it so we can have a few more choices of where to advertise.
1. Google
2. Google Regional
3. Search partners (these would only be other search engines, they would not be any large sites that happen to have a search engine.).
4. Content Search Partners (these would be large sites (over x visitors/month) that have search engines and content, such as Amazon/CNN)
5. Parked Domains
6. Email
7. Content sites (what we think of as AdSense, and allow the use of -negative keywords for domains)
8. Froggle
9. I'm sure there is something I forgot.
Now that I have all these choices - I want to make ads for ONLY that choice.
I understand that G likes to show ads on their site to determne KW strength and disabling of non relevant ads. However, this makes it so that I'm making ads for G and not for the actual audience.
If there is a breaking news story that is directly related to my site, I want to toss a few ads together for the Content Search Partners so its shown on CNN.
Regional and National G ads compete against each other, let me set a hierarchy of IF regional, then no National, and let my campaigns work for what they are designed todo.
Let everyone track the ROI/CTR of the various places ads are shown, and adjust prices for that medium.
Domain parking gets a bad rep for advertising right now, if there is some ROI there to be had, then let us make ads for it, and see for ourselves how it converts.
We all want to make money, G, advertisers, and sites that display G advertising. With the proper control, everyone can get their just due.
I can see the signatures now.....If there is an ad please click it so I continue to get free email.
JAG
This is not to say that contextual ads are not worthwhile, but they need to be expanded to branding.
Say, for example, that E-Trade maintains the top bid on "Dow Jones" and their message is simply, "E-Trade: 7 Second Trades Guaranteed." That's all they are saying on their TV spots now. Sure, they'll get clicks, but the ad's job here is primarily is "branding." That is to say, the goal is to get people who start thinking about trading stocks online to think of E-Trade as a good place to go. It's a "yeah, I've heard of them" type of marketing.
Branding is what a lot of advertising is about. And it works. But, in the PPC contextual world Google is offering via AdSense, the publisher isn't getting paid for the branding. Contextual ads now are about clicks. If you want to get this, you need to be willing to pay for the message, not PPC.
Publishers are not interested in what you propose because most marketing isn't done in context to any thing.
I am a publisher and an advertiser and I am very interested in the proposal.
I enjoy getting a google check each month, but I get VERY upset if I see my ads on a crappy publisher page.
Would you still be interested in what advertisers had to say if you got kicked out of AdSense?
AdSense is not paying enough to justify their operations and they don't see where it is going to, even if Overture's projection of a dollar a click (it's about 39 cents now) ever becomes the average that marketers pay.
If G or Y were to offer much of what eW is suggesting--which makes sense for him-- my clients would view it as giving their space away for nothing.
Quite frankly, the ad model isn't working on the web. Users are going to have to start paying for the news and information they want. The trick is going to be getting the price down to affordable. That's why we're looking hard at Peppercoin and other types of systems.
But, that's another issue. I think there is some value in contextual ads being use to brand effectively. Contextual ads need to move away from PPC.
Quite frankly, the ad model isn't working on the web.
Speak for yourself! Our advertising is now 100% PPC and the three employees we hired this year, their families, and their mortgage banks might disagree.
Quite frankly, the ad model isn't working on the web.
Speak for youself! Our advertising is now 100% PPC and the three employees we hired this year, their families, and the mortgage banks might disagree.
Sometimes they cross over and both are used, but often companies are looking for one over the other.
Branding companies get sales with or without PPC. They are usually larger companies in their market (a small company that dominates a niche market is a large company in their market). PPC is a way to remind people about them, and their basis of advertising is an emotional response.
I believe it was Nestle that last year had a dozen flash based games on their site. These games didn't make them any money, and they never sold the games, they were a way of people enjoying little web based games so when they were in the store, they associated nestle with fun. Very good branding.
ROI companies are usually smaller companies that don't have the budget to toss $10k/month into PPC so people remember who they are. They work off of ROI, and if the ROI isn't there - then they can't afford to keep advertising. They might get repeat customers, and some branding, but repeat customer sales can be worked into their PPC ROI formulas.
A content site makes money off of advertising. (Affiliate sales are a type of advertising). They do need to make money, but without advertisers, they can't make money. Advertisers need these content sites to show their ads.
There is a relationship between the two. However, both sides need to make money for these relationships to continue. If one side or the other isn't getting their just due, then it's not a good relationship.
If content sites aren't being paid enough, and advertisers aren't getting ROI from them, then one side needs to bend and change their formula. The content site needs more visitors, or the merchant needs to convert more visitors.
These relationships can work, but for the money to continue to be passed from advertiser to content sites, the content sites must be profitable. The merchant site has done what it can to pay the content site, that's their job - the content's site job is to get enough visitors to make the advertising dollars pay their bills.
Note: This probably sounds a bit more hard lined that I think about content sites, as I do run a few - just in advertiser mode today it seems.
