Forum Moderators: martinibuster
In other words what additional value do you offer that can out-bid google's value proposition? sizes, prices, reporting, geo targeting, cpc/cpm options .. what can you offer that google doesn't already or can't offer in the future?
I don't mean just get into the link selling business, but having a real link from a site advertisers would like to be seen on anyway is a big selling point.
If you can't afford ppc, low cost flat rate on a site that has your target market, is still an excellent option. I think most advertisers see that.
The keyword in the paragraphs above it "low cost". Try posting some traffic stats on your in-house ad promo pages. Do the math for them. Show them that your flat rate option is right for them.
Give them customized ads. A brighter color, bolder print, more words, better placement on the page.
You have to give them individualized service. Work with them. Hold their hand. Make them feel special.
Not every advertiser needs all the bells and whistles that Adwords offers. Some, simply put, don't have the time or energy to monitor a sophistocated system like Adwords. It is very time consuming. Keep is simple.
To that end, we decided to go with flat rate annual a couple months ago. They set it up, walk away, and just enjoy the traffic we send. It is easy for us, easy for them. Gives us more time to build the sites. Gives them more time to take orders. It is completely different than what Adwords offers, and that is what we needed, different. Different means it is impossible to compare apples to apples. We are grapefruit.
If you offer a similar service, it is very difficult to compete. Adwords is a tremendous brand. It is hard to compete with that. Never go head to head with a brand. Their head is bigger than yours, and will win every time. Give them what the brand can not give them.
Give them excellent value for their buck. Don't try to make a killing on each advertiser. It is the bottom line at the end of your year, that really matters.
by appealing to the publishers basic need or greed (money) they have delivered a double whammy on their competition by the refferal button and the landing page gimmick....with loads of eager beavers out to help.
Good strategy, Google. It appears to be working. While some opt out of the freebee others are onboard with the buttons and a chance at a buck or two.
:)
Speaking of discounted areas, I do not know about the rest here, but what google offers is much cheaper and less than what my prime locations are worth (specially with the inevitable cpm and mfa when you have a large site), Google has the advantage of filling up when there are no customers, but to see it as the premium and my own direct advertisers as cheaper would be reversing things. So competing with Google on price is not practical and out of the question.
As for simplicity, I partially agree for this in the end leaves you with the very few and rare wandering small business owners who usually go short term and will not understand branding, your stat reports or what conversion means, and after you educate them they will loose interest or go somewhere else, while the long term seasoned professional media and marketing managers who carry the keys to the real bucks are googling away, those are the ones I miss since I installed Google.
I used to have queries almost daily back when I had less traffic,now if I get one in 3 weeks I am lucky and if I sell a one month banner in 3 months I am luckier, tried simple offers, education, special promotions and very special prices, flaunting traffic and demographics and specialization, even had an expensive professional designer redesign the whole ad sales section.. You name it.
I think the google model and the very dominant nature of google itself with its resources, growth, aggressive competitiveness is forcing this dependency, the money may be good, but I am far from feeling better off (how can riding a wave ever be), and far from finding good alternative sources, even with YPN and MSN, the story will only repeat itself, its like having 3 lions guarding the same garden instead of one, I will not be sleeping better, I will only be working harder for nothing but the possibility that one of them could go belly up or stops liking my site!
You guys that run AdSense and successfully sell to individual advertisers, how are you doing it?
Now with my current much higher eCPM, I think to deal with individaul advertisers costs to much time.
and the high eCPM is it a wave ~ or fixed? How do you know it will not turn into a digital wave on you -_-_ or go flat line (God firbid) --___^___^_____________
"You guys that run AdSense and successfully sell to individual advertisers, how are you doing it? "
I answered this question in my post above.
We are successful at Adsense, at least I believe we are, earning over $4000 a month. That may not be much to some, but for us, that is success. We are also successful at receiving new and maintaining old in-house ad contracts, earning several thousand dollar a month there as well. We like to think that is successful, as it keeps the wolf away from the door, and allows to do the things we want. We also run affiliate ads on the site, and that pays nicely. All of them work together in harmony, to create over $10k in monthly earnings.
We don't offer tracking. If a business doesn't have site stats, and know how to read them, why should he advertise at all? He has much bigger problems. You need your own set of stats, and if you are watching them as closely as you should be, there is no doubt how much traffic any provider is sending. When tracking is offered, the price goes up. That is the bottom line.
Successfully selling your own ads is precisely what I was talking about.
Janet,
People like you are not rare and if you multiply yourself by thousands, maybe even millions of website owners that are selling to a lot or just a few advertisers then Google does have some serious competition and it is those advertisers Google is after.
Hobbs,
I was not talking about crushing Google, he is the 'big dog in the yard' and it would be impossible for even a few extremely successful and large (even Yahoo and MSN hasn't done it) websites to bring them down.
BUT, Google, by enlisting the help of it's very sizable publishing network can do it to the individual ad sellers quite easily thereby gaining your advertisers to add to their bottom line.
They do not want to crush the website, after all, they still need you but they will crush the ad seller aspect of it if given a chance.
I do not sell ads myself. I am a sole proprietor with too many irons in the fire and getting too old (69) to really care that much anymore. In the middle of moving, planning around that for the Holidays while juggling my websites and keeping on the ball watching my stats.....Guess I am just too lazy to even start trying it so I opted back in to the landing page part of it..:)
