Adsense Rich Media Beta

Looking for some guidance on beta invitation.

[tbird]

I just received an invitation to be part of the big G's Rich Media AdSense program. Has anybody heard of this yet? They ask for a variety of CPM rates. I've never done CPM just done adsense. I'm hoping people might be able to give a range for the following:

Expanding ads CPM:
Floating ads CPM:
Audio/Video ads CPM:
Prestitial ads CPM:
Intersitial ads CPM:
Dedicated home page placement (no out of the box) CPM:

Any help I anybody might be able to lend would be greatly appreciated.

[danimal]

they are asking what you personally would charge to run those ad types? because there are established industry rates for most of that stuff.

[tbird]

Yes they are asking what I personally would like to receive on those type of ads. Can you sticky me somewhere I might be able to refer to the rates for those specific ad types?

[jomaxx]

I'm not so sure there really are established rates for those things. There may be "rate card" rates, but that's more a hope and a dream than what any publisher gets in actuality. There are a few forums where webmasters openly discuss the rates that can be expected from the various ad networks, but I don't see much of this on AdSense-dominated WebmasterWorld.

... BTW, it sounds from this like maybe Google has turned the bidding process on its head, and the publishers that bid the lowest for running rich media spots will get the ads.

[elsewhen]

... BTW, it sounds from this like maybe Google has turned the bidding process on its head, and the publishers that bid the lowest for running rich media spots will get the ads.

actually, it seems to make more sense for this to be an additional component to the bidding process (something that many publishers have been asking for).

perhaps the publisher sets the minimum amount she would accept for a rich ad, and the advertisers bid the maximum that would pay. google does the rest.

[europeforvisitors]

Or maybe Google is just trying to gauge publishers' expectations.

[tbird]

What I'm hoping to avoid is pie in the sky rate card rates and try and establish some realistic expectations that I can weigh against my existing adsense revenue.

[europeforvisitors]

One thing to keep in mind is that rich-media ads may display only once per visit, so the CPM needs to take that into account (especially if you have a sticky site with a high ratio of page views to unique visitors).

[ruffrazor]

How can i join that Beta program?

[tbird]

Not sure how you join, they contacted us via e-mail out of the blue.

[danimal]

>>>There may be "rate card" rates, but that's more a hope and a dream than what any publisher gets in actuality.<<<

that's a good point... i was referring to industry standards for what the publisher gets without a middle man... and that does vary, depending on a bunch of things.

with a little research, you should be able to come up with some rate card numbers, but what to charge after google's cut? knock off 60%, and give that to 'em as an estimate?

if i worked in advertising i'd throw some figures out here, but right now i only know facts in one of those areas.

[rmdlwa]

I wish people would throw out numbers to be discussed. I guess I'll have to start - I'm looking at a rate card for "Interstitials" and it appears to range from $30 to $50. Thoughts?

[europeforvisitors]

Whose rate card? Demographics are going to make a big difference in what a site can charge (or pretend to charge).

[rmdlwa]

Agreed. The site in question is a sports website with basic demographic of young males (16 to 35), receives approx. 20,000 page views per day from about 5,000 daily unique visitors. We are just looking for ballpark figures to go back to google with and are hoping for some feedback. Thanks!

[tbird]

After doing some research here is what I've found:

Expanding ads CPM: $8 - $20
Floating ads CPM: $8 - $20
Audio/Video ads CPM: $35 - $70
Prestitial ads CPM: $35 - $60
Intersitial ads CPM: $30 - $50
Dedicated home page placement (no out of the box) CPM: $10 - $30

Do these rates seem reasonable?

[moheybee]

I can't imagine anyone paying close to that for a sports website.

[tbird]

Fair enough, those are some rate cards from various sports properties and I'm not saying they apply to this situation, but...what could you imagine them paying?

[ByronM]

I highly doubt you would see anywhere near those CPM rates.

Google is looking to take 60-70% so you may see on average $2-$5.00 cpm rates and even then thats "prime" for most networks. (and you would need more page views)

[speedpro50]

That really is quite high. I would think $20CPM is going to be the very top, and $3-$8CPM much more likely.

[jomaxx]

Hard to predict; some sites already do much better than this with a regular AdSense block. But given that the ads will be far less targeted than a standard text ad, I tend to agree with the lower estimates.

Heck, there might even be simple "run-of-network" campaigns, which are the antithesis of what AdSense was originally conceived as.

[europeforvisitors]

Heck, there might even be simple "run-of-network" campaigns, which are the antithesis of what AdSense was originally conceived as.

That's probably what they are in most cases. Still, RON "rich media" ads might work better than contextual ads on a lot of general-interest sites (news sites, for example, where there aren't a whole lot of good contextual ads for articles about roadside bombs in Iraq, political corruption in Washington, or physician-assisted suicide in Oregon).

[AdBaba]

Pricing ad inventory is a tricky issue. In addition to what has already been discussed, you might also consider:

1) Opportunity cost: what can you get for the same ad inventory elsewhere (ex through other display ad networks or direct sales)?

2) User Experience: graphic and rich media ads are less relevant more obtrusive than text/contextual ads. This will inevitably have some implications for user experience and user retention on your site, and, in the long run, for your site’s traffic and ad revenue. To assign a price tag on this effect, try to estimate or measure how much traffic you might potentially loose (not an easy task). Especially, interstitials, audio/video and floaters might not be worth the short-term ad revenue gains for most sites.

[AdBaba]

Question:

Will these ads appear through the same AdSense code in place of the regular text ads or will there be an additional code / position for those ads?

If it's the former, your AdSense eCPM becomes your opportunity cost.

[Mr_Fern]

I got a call about this a few weeks ago, discussed rates with the person who called, and we set up some decent rates. I didn't want to be ridiculous and I didn't want to sell myself short. The person on the phone suggested some decent rates and when I said I was interested in one type of ad she just suggested a higher CPM rate.

They called because someone voiced interest in doing one of those slide in windows, which I gave a higher rate for. Haven't heard anything since then.

Hope I do soon though, my CPM's pretty low for the start of this month.