Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I think that the overall changes publishers will see in revenue through adsense has to do with the big supply/demand picture.
Ad cost will be lowered by adding supply in the near term. Publishers are only one source of ad space supply. Gmail is another. Newsletters are another. I'm sure more are to come. The supply is going up. That's the bad news for publishers.
This should lead to greater demand as the market reaches equilibrium. That's the good news.
The final average cost per unit and total ad revenue will also depend on the elasticity of demand for adspace and demand shifts as this type of advertising becomes more mainstream.
The problem for publishers in the near (and possibly long) term is that the overall price of ads will most likely drop though total revenues from ads for the entire market may very well go up.
Given that we have a limited amount of supply that we can offer as individual publishers this will probably mean lower earnings for each of us over time. This is true even as additional advertisers are brought into the program. We will own a smaller piece of a larger pie.
Google on the other hand gets a bigger piece of a bigger pie since they are providing more of the supply directly. It is smart business and I would do the same if I were in their position.
Hopefully the value of clicks from publisher sites will prove to have a big enough delta above sources such as Gmail to make the above scenario false. My personal guess is that they won't. In fact, if advertisers aren't allowed to bid seperately for gmail and publisher sites we will be relying on Google to determine our relative worth compared to gmail and other sources.
Like the ever obiquitous banner add, people will learn to ignore AdSense ads, thus reducing across the board CTR.
Hopefully the value of clicks from publisher sites will prove to have a big enough delta above sources such as Gmail to make the above scenario false. My personal guess is that they won't. In fact, if advertisers aren't allowed to bid seperately for gmail and publisher sites we will be relying on Google to determine our relative worth compared to gmail and other sources.
Yes, but if rates for gmail, DomainPark, and other poorly converting venues aren't discounted heavily because of the junk traffic they're likely to produce, advertisers will simply opt out of content ads.
(Of course, Google can afford to discount gmail heavily, since it doesn't have to share the revenues with third parties.)
Yes, but if rates for gmail, DomainPark, and other poorly converting venues aren't discounted heavily because of the junk traffic they're likely to produce, advertisers will simply opt out of content ads.
Yes. This would certainly have an impact on supply/demand. Most likely not in our favor.
So I'm wondering what a 1% increase in online spend represents - say in a year? How many million extra is that - because that's a big picture I'd like a bit of.
Google could find itself the WalMart of text-ad advertising while vertical networks skim off advertisers and publishers in categories like travel, where there's enough money at stake to justify development of vertical ad networks by startup firms or existing service companies with IT and Web expertise. If that happened, a lot of publishers could benefit.
Have you any feeling about what sort of timescale it will take for the main commercial areas on the net to become well enough defined (in terms of quality and establishment of reliable sites) for advertisers to value vertical networks / flat rates.
No, I don't--I'm just a writer and publisher, not an advertising guru. :-) But I think it's bound to happen.
I also worry about supply and demand, mostly from the large increase in AdSense impressions over the past year and probably in the future.
Too many impressions competing for a finite number of clicks may be a problem for popular keywords and keyphrases, but I'm sure there are many terms that don't get enough impressions. That's one reason why it can be useful to have a site with an overall theme but many subtopics: If the advertisers for "widgets" use up their clicks because of the 1,000,000 widgets impressions that are available on any given day, you may still be able to earn revenues with clicks for "whatsits," "thingamabobs," and "thingamajigs."
However no bids for "thingamabobs" at this time.
Given it's hard to write a great ad in just a handfull of characters, but still... the quality of the ads often leads to inappropriate clicks.
Theme advertising networks seem to be a desireable possibilty. But it might be awhile before they appear in some segments.
