Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Have any of those who opted out (hunderdown, Mthiessen among others) still found it to have been beneficial? Even with a very small percentage of site targetted ads, opting out raises EPC for the content ads?
no, because banner advertisers typically choose sites by demographic, instead of targeting the actual content of the site, like contextual ads do.
one example of demographic banner targeting would be social networking sites... they have a lot more banner traffic than google will ever serve up.
are we supposed to believe that the typical behavior of banner advertisers changes just because they are using google? i think not, and the site-targeted ads that i have seen on various sites back that up.
for example, a few days ago there was a spate of google site-targeted banner ads for a new tv show, that were showing up on very niche-specific sites about widgets... no advertiser is going to pay a decent cpm rate for that, so only the publishers with the worst traffic will get those totally untargeted banners.
and when comparing that traffic volume with the example that martini gave, it's obvious that we can characterize site-targeted ads by the former, not the latter.
if you need further proof, look at all the google base ads on the photo site we have been discussing... that is the typical garbage that most publishers get with google site-targeted banner ads.
no, because banner advertisers typically choose sites by demographic, instead of targeting the actual content of the site, like contextual ads do.
Sure, if they're selling to the mass market. But as anyone who's made a living in the advertising business can tell you, not all display ads (which is what you mean by "banner ads," I assume) are directed at the mass market. That's why you see display ads for cars on automotive sites, or for cruise lines on cruising sites. It's the same principle as running display ads for cooking utensils in BON APPETIT or for cameras in POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY.
Getting back to the topic of AdSense, site-targeted CPM ads can pay well, not very well, or somewhere in between, depending on:
- The advertiser;
- The site;
- Whether the ads are being run as low-CPM fillers or to reach a targeted audience on short notice (e.g., an international airline's fare promotion, where a high CPM bid is justified by the need to fill seats on planes that are leaving next week or next month).
As the expression goes, your mileage may vary. Apparently you're getting lousy mileage with site-targeted CPM ads. That doesn't mean everyone is hearing a giant sucking sound at the bottom of their CPM gas tank, or that all publishers should opt out of site-targeted CPM ads.
Equally, some sites whose demographics lend themselves better to branding than sales may experience lower CPMs. For instance sites whose visitors are not consumers (they're not reviewing or shortlisting products), but are mostly there for trivial reasons like reading gossip, perhaps it may be reasonable to assume the CPM on that is going to be low. Certainly, a site like that might be appealing to a movie studio wanting cheap exposure for their new teen movie.
So I guess it could be depending on the site, CPM could be hot or not. What I'm wondering is, how closely does the CPM correlate to eCPM?
no, because banner advertisers typically choose sites by demographic, instead of targeting the actual content of the site, like contextual ads do.
Dan, I've completely lost what you are trying to say, what you are actually talking about, and the relationship of what you are writing to the topic. My bad, I guess.
Why exactly are you talking about banner ads, when the topic is about site targeting? I'm sure you have some good point to make, but I can't figure it.
I will add that you certainly don't represent me as an advertiser, and I'm not quite willing to believe that you (or any of us) are in any position to speak about how "banner advertisers" think and operate.
I happen to have adverted via banner ads in the past, use both text and banner ads in adwords, (targed and contextual) and your representation of "us" is off base in terms of what we do.
I WILL pay a premium for site targeted ads provided it's prime above the fold placement, and the audience/topics of the site are on the nose.
As the expression goes, your mileage may vary. Apparently you're getting lousy mileage with site-targeted CPM ads
That low mileage for cpm ads would be typical of sites that:
1) Have many ad slots on each page.
2) Have relatively low ecpm for contextual ads per ad block or for at least one adblock.
3) Are generally in niches with low bids (although that's a situation where lowball cpm ads may do better than lowball cpc ads.
4) Have relatively low Ctr per ad unit (partly as a result of too many ads slots)
5) (Tentatively) The degree of smart pricing.
My sense is the junkier the site, the more likely you'll get both low paying cpc, AND more site targeted ads at low CPM rates.
So, the junkier the site, the more spammy or MFA it is, the more likely the webmaster will benefit from a) opting out, and b) reducing number of ads on pages. I can't prove that, but I comfy with the conclusions. But I'm generalizing here. Ehhhh.
efv, you failed to quantify your claim that site-targeted ads can pay well.
however, if we are to believe rbacal, "The range of CPM rates that we RECEIVE... run from about $2 - $6 CPM."
so we are left to assume that the $6 cpm rate is "hot" for the efv website.
once you know details like that, it's a lot easier to make informed decisions.
efv, you failed to quantify your claim that site-targeted ads can pay well.
The AdSense rules don't allow sharing of eCPMs. Suffice it to say that I'm speaking from personal experience.
however, if we are to believe rbacal, "The range of CPM rates that we RECEIVE... run from about $2 - $6 CPM."so we are left to assume that the $6 cpm rate is "hot" for the efv website.
How can you assume anything about my Web site based on a range of numbers posted by another member?
[edited by: martinibuster at 9:54 pm (utc) on Jan. 13, 2007]
[edit reason] TOS 4 & 19. [/edit]
rbacal already told us what site-targeted ads pay.
suffice it to say that many publishers won't be so enthusiastic about low ecpm numbers like that.
Thanks a bunch!
The only way that site targeting works is if your site is basically about one topic or a small range of topics.
If your site is based on a broader range of topics, then many ads will be way off-base.
The only way that site targeting works is if your site is basically about one topic or a small range of topics.If your site is based on a broader range of topics, then many ads will be way off-base.
Why do you think ads that are way off-base would be a problem with site targeting?
I must be missing something.
I opted out because often the ads were so off base in certain areas, they "cheapened" the site.
If someone site targets your site for travel related to Scotland, those ads can also show up on your California, USA page with ads such as "Visit Scotland".
The advertizer can control that. What we call "Site Targeting" really could, and maybe should, be just called "Targetd CPM" ads.
That's because an advertizer can target right down to a single page on a site.
So there'd be no need to show ads about Scotland on a page about visiting California.
The advertizer can control that.
I guess the keyword is can. I experienced this way too many times (know many others also) and canned the site targeting. Never been happier. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but in my case and those of others I know, it simply didn't.
If someone site targets your site for travel related to Scotland, those ads can also show up on your California, USA page with ads such as "Visit Scotland".
On a site about international travel, I've seen regionally targeted U.S. display ads for an American city that was offering a weekend package built around museums, culture, and restaurants.
That may sound odd, but it really isn't, because the kind of Americans who travel overseas are likely to fit the same demographic profile as people within the region who are interested in big-city museums, culture, and dining. So it can make perfect sense for the Widget City CVB to target people who are thinking about trips abroad. After all, those upscale doctors, lawyers, and businesspeople in Littletown, U.S.A. may not be going to Paris or Hong Kong until later in the year, so they could be tempted by a winter weekend package to Minneapolis, Denver, or Philadelphia in the meantime.
Again, the ads that I saw were display ads (served by another network), but there's no reason why an AdSense advertiser might not use site-targeted CPM ads in the same way.
An even more obvious (if hypothetical) example would be site-targeted ads for engagement rings on a site like FaceBook, to reach college students and graduates who are thinking about marriage and proposals.
I opted out because often the ads were so off base in certain areas, they "cheapened" the site.
Ok. I understand. The way I look at "cheapening" actually is that provided the page is not dominated by huge ads that sit in places where content should be, if the ads are not completely "on target", I don't have a problem with it. Or rather I don't like it but it's not a big deal for me to occasionally have an advertiser targeting my site with a non-topical ad.
Ineffective targeting is really not in our control even for contextual ads, so we're never going to get perfection.
To tell you the truth, I think that when a publisher keeps the ad block(s) unobtrusive, that visitors won' hardly consciously notice if there's an off topic ad. I don't think it registers UNLESS the page is dominated by ads.
On a site about international travel, I've seen regionally targeted U.S. display ads for an American city that was offering a weekend package built around museums, culture, and restaurants.That may sound odd, but it really isn't,
To tell you the truth, I think that when a publisher keeps the ad block(s) unobtrusive, that visitors won' hardly consciously notice if there's an off topic ad. I don't think it registers UNLESS the page is dominated by ads.
Maybe my example wasn't the best, but then EFV's reply is stretching it. I doubt very much that someone planning a trip for another country is going to say "hey, I think we'll go to Alabama instead of Scotland because of this great advertisement/deal".
Again, people/publishers can go back and forth...what I'm stating is if it works for your site - great, if it doesn't, get rid of it. And "no" the page doesn't have to be dominated by ads to make it cheapen a site IMHO. Any advertisement that is not aimed squarely at the subject may as well be a "catch the monkey" banner as far as I'm concerned.
[edited by: The_Contractor at 4:11 pm (utc) on Jan. 15, 2007]
Maybe my example wasn't the best, but then EFV's reply is stretching it. I doubt very much that someone planning a trip for another country is going to say "hey, I think we'll go to Alabama instead of Scotland because of this great advertisement/deal".
Not instead of. In addition to.
In any case, site targeting is about reaching the right audience, not about fitting the message to keywords on a page. It's like running ads for Patek Philippe watches in CONDE NAST TRAVELER, or ads for Mercedes-Benz cars in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Sometimes the message will be perceptibly on topic (ads for a transpacific airline on a "visit Japan" travel site), and sometimes they won't (ads for sleep aids on RudysRedBullBlog.com).
there is no relevancy comparison between contextual ads and site-targeted ads.
advertisers pay a lot more for contextual because it is far more relevant... google has based their entire business model on it, and so have a lot of publishers as well.
contractor, your example hit the nail on the head... those silly ads for tv shows were completely off-target, and it's a great example of how you can't depend on the advertiser to give a site targeted ads.
scotland travellers are going to go to alabama, just because they saw a web ad? lol
that is beyond stretching it, efv, it's absurd.
scotland travellers are going to go to alabama, just because they saw a web ad? lol
that is beyond stretching it, efv, it's absurd.
Sure, if they fit the right demographic. Let's say you're the Alabama Bureau of Tourism & Travel and you'd like to attract well-heeled golfers from the Southeast to courses and resorts along the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail for getaway weekends. Regionally targeted display ads aimed at Alabama residents who are planning summer golf vacations in Scotland could be quite effective, because those people (a) don't play golf only when they're in Scotland, and (b) are likely to have the money for upscale golf weekends in their own region.
The Scotland/Albama example is hypothetical, but I've seen real-life display ads for a large Midwestern city, a Pacific resort island, Caribbean cruising, and other destinations on an [unrelated continent] travel site. Do you really think those advertisers and their ad agencies don't know what they're doing, or that their media buyers are selecting media by throwing darts at a dartboard?
[edited by: The_Contractor at 12:50 pm (utc) on Jan. 16, 2007]
the other account was serving ads to the same site and beginning january cpm fell over, even though the other account stayed pretty much the same.
so i opted out for the second account a couple days ago and so far the results are promising. cpm up, cost per click well up - started to get a few dollar + clicks just like the good old days.
but, its only been 24 hours so far so could just be normal fluctuations.
just my experience. no warranty is given!
EFV, you are obviously confusing print media with online media and we are talking of online media in these discussions.
So am I.
I looked in your niche and one of the CPM ads I saw were from a car manufacturer. The ad is about importing a car directly from Sweden. This ad shows up on many European travel, hotel, cruise, and yes some transportation pages.
Let's take the following into account based on figures I can find. This manufacturer sold a total of 443,937 cars in 2005 with 123,575 in the US market (over double of any other country). Let's keep in mind the USA alone there were 16.9 million new vehicles sold in 2005. The latest figures I could find on the <insert Manufactures name> Overseas Delivery Program are from 2003 with 405 vehicles sold this way worldwide. So lets give them credit even though they had an 11.4% market drop last year and say it will double this year to a total of 810 vehicles.
So in the whole world (over 6.5 billion people) with about 801 million having Internet access you have 810 people that will convert/use this program. Break that down even further and tell me in all the millions of websites available, how many of that 810 are going to be visiting one of the websites like yours or in your niche? How many are going to be looking at European hotels and decide to purchase a vehicle directly from the manufacturer using their overseas program? I would venture to say "0". So again, how is this useful to the visitor? This is what I mean when I say that this "cheapens" a site. I bet more people looking at European hotels have a greater percentage of being intrested in Viagra, but most would say that would "cheapen" the site (even though it would actually be more useful to a greater number of visitors). So, if you wouldn't have the "viagra" ad on your site, why the ad that is completely useless?
What I'm trying to say is that if I was a site owner in the European travel sector, I would not want that ad showing up on my European <country> hotels pages or any other page. It does nothing for the user and does nothing to make my site useful. So if you could please tell me how you are providing useful information by showing the above ad on your cruises or hotels pages?
Now, if it was targeted to say an auto review site on "manufacturers name" vehicles, yes, it at least makes sense.
Is it smart for the advertiser? Maybe, but my guess is they are not paying much and it may be worth getting the name "manufacturers name " in front of eyeballs even though the vast, vast majority will never use the program in the advertisement.
Large companies such as this regardless if they are making money or bleeding with debt often spend money on advertising online, which is completely worthless. I have been a consultant to the consultants for several print publishers and the smart ones can usually admit they know little or nothing of the marketing differences between print and online.
[edited by: The_Contractor at 2:35 pm (utc) on Jan. 16, 2007]
i almost choked on my coffee from laughing at that!
yes, they are targeting a demographic, just like the tv show ads... that's o.k. for a banner ad farm site, but i think that most of us here are looking for more money from our pages... and off-target banner ads on the same page as adsense will lower the adsense income.
and off-target banner ads on the same page as adsense will lower the adsense income.
How?
How?
How not?
What I'm trying to say is that if I was a site owner in the European travel sector, I would not want that ad showing up on my European <country> hotels pages or any other page. It does nothing for the user and does nothing to make my site useful. So if you could please tell me how you are providing useful information by showing the above ad on your cruises or hotels pages?
First of all, the ads aren't intended to be "useful information," they're intended to be ads. (If they're useful to the reader, that's a nice bonus.)
Second, some readers are interested in overseas car-delivery programs, so ads that address their needs are useful to both the advertisers and those readers.
Third, some readers could benefit from an overseas car-delivery program if they knew it was available (many don't). Advertising isn't useful only to people who are actively shopping for a product or service--or to; it's also useful to people who learn about the availability of a product or service by seeing ads.
Fourth, overseas car-delivery programs have been around for decades, with ads in publications that range from newspaper travel sections to THE NEW YORKER to Web sites that reach apropriate audiences. The manufacturers are obviously happy with the results of their advertising, or they would have dumped the programs (and their ads) decades ago.
The bottom line is that advertising is about communicating a message to the desired audience. Site-targeted CPM ads can work well for that purpose, with or without keyword matching (which is why, for example, a honeymoon destination might be interested in running CPM ads on all kinds of pages within a wedding-planning site).
Side note: I suspect that Google's site-targeted CPM text ads are little more than a baby step or experiment for Google. That could change in the future, since Google's recent acquisition of YouTube is obviously going to create the opportunity and need to expand beyond the current pool of CPC text-ad advertisers. We've already heard about a "rich media" beta, and who knows what else may be on the horizon? It'll be interesting to see how AdSense and the "content network" evolve over the next year or two or three.
First of all, the ads aren't intended to be "useful information," they're intended to be ads. (If they're useful to the reader, that's a nice bonus.)
Hmm..I guess that is where we disagree, as I believe they should compliment the page topic. So your belief is "contextual" advertising like AdSense/AdWords is not needed and ads do not to be targeted to the content to be just as successful to the advertiser. I'm afraid most advertisers would disagree, along with most users of PPC, and site owners where the ads are displayed.
Second, some readers are interested in overseas car-delivery programs, so ads that address their needs are useful to both the advertisers and those readers.
Third, some readers could benefit from an overseas car-delivery program if they knew it was available (many don't). Advertising isn't useful only to people who are actively shopping for a product or service--or to; it's also useful to people who learn about the availability of a product or service by seeing ads.
Fourth, overseas car-delivery programs have been around for decades, with ads in publications that range from newspaper travel sections to THE NEW YORKER to Web sites that reach apropriate audiences. The manufacturers are obviously happy with the results of their advertising, or they would have dumped the programs (and their ads) decades ago.
some readers could benefit from an overseas car-delivery program if they knew it was available c'mon I gave you the numbers , do the math about how many people care about this program in general. Do some research and again, quit confusing or bringing up print media marketing with online marketing - completely different. Again, what the heck does someone looking for a cruise or hotel room want to stare at a large adblock above the fold telling them about a oversees car program.
First of all if they have been doing it for decades (which I do know these programs have existed) and are still at .09122916089445124 of their sales I'm sure they are actually losing money on the project, but simply do not care.
Please don't stretch things so far, as I know you are more intelligent than the comments made above.
The bottom line is that advertising is about communicating a message to the desired audience. Site-targeted CPM ads can work well for that purpose, with or without keyword matching (which is why, for example, a honeymoon destination might be interested in running CPM ads on all kinds of pages within a wedding-planning site).
Now, the example of honeymoon packages on wedding planning pages of course make sense, but how can you equate that with the example given and discussed here? So, overseas direct car sales have more to do with a European Hotels page than actual advertisements from a specific European hotel or restaurant in the <city> area - I didn't know that.
In closing, I find it very hard to swallow that you actually believe any of the points you made above.
