Deciding Between CPM and Time Based Sales

A few weeks ago we announced CPM based direct sales for web display ads. We wanted to give some advice on which method was right based on a seller’s needs. This was our comment:

If your site either has high traffic numbers or a large amount of flow through traffic, CPM is usually better. If your site has a more tightly defined / niche audience or your traffic is very sticky / recurring, then selling in blocks of time might make more sense.

We recently stumbled upon another blog’s post that described this choice and included numbers from a survey, and we wanted to share it with you. From the post:

Direct ad space sales bring in some of the highest revenues but also require the greatest effort to arrange. In Scott’s recent interview, Jeremy from Shoemoney describes how he sells ad space on his blog using a fixed price monthly tenancy rather than using CPM, CPC or CPA rates.

We surveyed the OpenX community to find out how they package their inventory for direct ad sales:

  • 45% charge on a CPM rate (payment based on the number of times the ad is displayed)
  • 38% sell a tenancy (payment based on displaying ads for a fixed period of time, regardless of the number of impressions)
  • 13% charge on a CPC rate (payment based on the number of visitors who click on the ad)
  • 4% charge on a CPA rate (payment based on visitors which click on an ad and go on to purchase a product / service)

via OpenX blog

October 29, 2008 | Filed Under Advertising, Community

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New Design Sneak Peek

We’ve been tooling away at a new design and wanted to give you a sneak peek. You’ll start to see the changes in the Beta over the next few weekly releases.

It’s not a radical change – it will be familiar yet vastly improved. Our goals were to improve your experience by putting the more important information up front and reorganize some UI stuff in ways that made more sense. Oh, and some nifty effects too.

A tip for you fresh designers out there: AJAX and fancy UI effects can be overdone. That’s why our first designs didn’t have a lot of it implemented. Wait until people are actually using what you have so you can see what processes could should be streamlined, where it really makes sense to add a shadow box, etc.

Here is a sliver of the new socket page. Let us know what you think!

October 24, 2008 | Filed Under Beta, Features, Fixes

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New Features: CPM Sales and Better Quantity

New from the isocket advertising lab: we now offer sellers the ability to list inventory based on CPM pricing models. This feature was always on our list of things to add and a crucial piece for many of you.

When selecting the CPM option to sell your display ads, you have full control over the CPM rate, quantity of “units” you have available, and if you require a minimum quantity purchase. Screen shot:

CPM is the price of 1,000 ad impressions.  In this example I am selling 100,000 impressions at a $5 CPM, so my price is $5 and quantity is 100.  Because of my personal preference, I am requiring advertisers to purchase in block of 10,000 impressions.  To do this I set the increments to 10. Get it?

You will see a few different items on the socket page if you choose to sell by CPM.  The price is your CPM and not the total cost (as it is with Flat-Rate ad runs).  With Flat-Rate ‘Ad Run Time’ will have the length of time (1 month/2 weeks), but with CPM is will read “Based on CPM”.   Once a portion of the socket is purchased, your ‘Quantity’ will read Remaining/Total.

But… which one should I use? Time or impressions?

It is important to understand when to sell by impressions and when to sell by a length of time.  There is no right or wrong answer – it depends on your inventory and the info behind it, and what makes sense for your buyers.

If your site either has high traffic numbers or a large amount of flow through traffic, CPM is usually better. If your site has a more tightly defined / niche audience or your traffic is very sticky / recurring, then selling in blocks of time might make more sense.

October 15, 2008 | Filed Under Advertising, Beta, Features

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Launched Help Center, Expanding Support

We uploaded a new build over the weekend with a new isocket “Help Center”. It’s pretty straight forward… a place where you can get the answers to your questions. If you go to Support in the top nav, you’ll find different tips and resources about the isocket platform. There are three main sections: Common Questions, Guides and New Features.

isocket help center

Common Questions

This area is the best way for new members to learn about isocket and get answers to basic questions. Through a Q&A setup, you can learn how the different components of isocket work together and how buyers, sellers and providers interact with isocket and each other.

Guides

The isocket Guides section is an in depth look and step by step tutorial on how to do certain operation on isocket.  Whether it is setting up your account for direct banner sales or implementing ad code onto your site, Guides will walk you through the process.

New Features

Although we always announce new features on this blog, the new features section will help you learn about the constantly growing number of ways you can benefit from isocket and how to get started with them right away.

This blog remains the best place to get the latest news. We’re also looking into different forum solutions to implement on the site shortly. Let us know if you have a favorite forum, because we’re not fans of the cluttered old school types.

October 9, 2008 | Filed Under Beta, Community, Features

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Hulu Experiments With Video Ads, Gets It Right

The isocket team doesn’t pay for TV service, so we’re trying to live off what’s available online. Most of the big networks put content up that you can watch for free. I’m sure you’ve been to or at least heard of Hulu.com, one of the big TV show websites.

The online shows maintain the commercial breaks built into the programs. Each commercial break shows a 15 or 30 second long video ad, usually from tech companies like RIM / BlackBerry.

When I wanted to watch a Firefly episode, Hulu asked me if I’d rather see a 2 minute long ad and then be commercial free for the full hour, or have the normal 15/30 commercial breaks. It even told me what the “extended” ad up front would be: the extended version of the Tina Fey / Martin Scorsese American Express Airport Lounge bit.

I chose the Tina Fey ad. I actually watched it and can recall the bit a full day later. I’m even compelled to share it with you…

Here’s the point: Hulu is doing something old broadcast media would never do. They experimented. They reduced the overall ad time in an already reduced format. Old media would never think “by reducing the amount of commercial seconds we can sell, we’ll be able to make more!”.

And it worked with flying colors. If RIM knew how effective that was, they’d pay more than they likely did. But since buying ads on a canceled TV series shown for free on the web is still considered “emerging”, RIM probably got a great deal.

There’s more than one economic model when it comes to buying and selling advertising!

The Deck banner ad network is another example of a group who decided to limit total inventory to one ad per page. They charge a higher price for that one ad spot compared to other networks because they believe that one single ad has more impact than 10 ads per page. What do you think?

Remember that even within a tighly defined target audience, every single person is different. Giving your audience choices and experimenting is one thing you can do to be a smarter marketer.

October 3, 2008 | Filed Under Advertising

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