Forum Moderators: martinibuster
What metrics go into calculating the quality of your traffic?
Mine hovers around the $43 mark for approx 2000 page impressions and keeps me in 3 figures per day avg = 90 to 120 avg
Am I close?
If, on the other hand the site is MFA, then a high eCPM would be a good thing.
The quality of traffic has a lot to do with the motivations for a person visiting your site. Are they looking to buy a product or sign up for a service? High value. Are they just killing time? Low value. But traffic value tends to be inversely proportional to traffic quantity, so in the end both can be profitable.
Demographics are also important. Teenagers aren't particularly high-value. Which seems odd to me, given how much advertising money is spent courting them in other media.
To me, a quality visitor finds my pages, clicks through and makes use of the pages and content, bookmarks the page, is being inspired by the content, hopefully so much that he tells his friends about. While I appreciate it when he clicks an ad, I won't say that he is not valuable to me if he doesn't.
Invaluable users are those who just (try to) rip off content or hotlink images without asking or giving credit.
To Google, a quality visitor might be completely different.
What metrics go into calculating the quality of your traffic?
As far as AdSense is concerned, you'd have to ask Google. :-) On a more personal level, I can calculate the value of my traffic by looking at affiliate sales, which are a direct measure of whether traffic converts. I don't obsess about it, though--I have a media site (a.k.a. "content site" or "information site"), and anyone who's worked in the magazine business will know that some topics pull better (and generate more income) than others. Having a good mix of topics, some big moneymakers and some not, is how a publisher attracts and retains readers.
Teenagers aren't particularly high-value. Which seems odd to me, given how much advertising money is spent courting them in other media.
By and large, those other media aren't direct-response media. If a TV commercial gets a kid to think "I need a PlayStation," the kid can badger Mom and Dad into buying a PlayStation, or the kid may be motivated into getting a part-time job at McDonald's so he can buy a PlayStation. With AdSense, the situation is dfferent: Ads are intended to generate immediate sales or leads, so the kid who doesn't have a credit card at the ready is of little interest to the advertiser.
Demographics are also important. Teenagers aren't particularly high-value. Which seems odd to me, given how much advertising money is spent courting them in other media.
Teen magazines have ads like all the rest which obviously don't require immediate response. So why is it so different in cyberspace? If a teen sees an ad in a magazine for a brand of jeans, for example, she'll remember to look for the brand next time she's in the store, but if she sees an ad online, she gets amnesia and will never think to look for it in a brick-and-mortar store?! The whole idea apparently so popular today of "we-must-convert-online" is way beyond me.
The teen market is a huge market, esp. for music. I haven't seen any data, but I doubt it's true to say: "Teenagers aren't particularly high-value [online]." If your site is for an industry which doesn't interest teens, sure, but if it does, then it could be a gold mine.
The minor-age market is ripe for the picking. The number of teenagers is growing and they're spending more money. There are 31.3 million kids between the ages of 12 and 19 in the United States -- about 11 percent of the population -- according to Teen Research Unlimited of Northbrook, Ill. Their numbers are expected to increase until at least 2010. More teens are working full- or part-time jobs and spending their own money -- as well as a little more of mom and dad's. In 2006, youngsters shelled out $195 billion of their own green, compared with $94 billion in 1999, according to a Harris Group survey. A lot of that money is being spent online. Jupiter Communications estimates that teens accounted for $1.2 billion in Internet spending by 2002.[Source:Bank Rate.com]
That means a lot of Adwords dollars are targeting teens? Or could.
I bought a $7,500 domain name to target the teen market, but haven't had time to build a site and fully develop it.
p/g
those other media aren't direct-response media.
You nailed it. But it's really the mentality, not the medium. Everyone still thinks, in 2007, that the only successful web ad is the ad that gets clicked and leads to an immediate transaction. There's never been a comparable expectation for radio, magazines or TV. But with teens spending ever-more of their free time online, how much longer can teen-oriented advertisers ignore the promise of internet branding campaigns?
We've gotten a bit on a tangent, it seems.
i think a big part of the cause of why online direct marketing is so hot and doesn't give branding a chance ironically lies in the supremacy and exemplary function of google cpc text ads.
advertisers are completely trained to see immediate success. it's so practical and measurable. lean back and watch the dollars flow in.
when people want me as their affiliate (=sales assistant) and i suggest a nice low-priced cpm banner campaign, they tell me "we don't give a f*ck about branding, we want sales".
that is a big big problem for publishers of online magazines. offline, advertisers still spend hell of a lot of money, online they are totally cheap.
i think a big part of the cause of why online direct marketing is so hot and doesn't give branding a chance ironically lies in the supremacy and exemplary function of google cpc text ads.advertisers are completely trained to see immediate success. it's so practical and measurable. lean back and watch the dollars flow in.
I think it depends on the type of advertiser. Outside of the AdSense world, I see a lot of display-advertising campaigns for tourist boards, airlines, cruise lines, hotel chains, etc. that are obviously geared more to brand awareness than to direct response. That may be one reason why Google is offering site-targeted CPM ads and CPM Ad Placement on custom channels: to reach beyond the its traditional transaction-oriented "what's my immediate ROI?" PPC advertiser base.
