Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category
Ad Placements – Lower Rates Means More Total Pixels March 4th, 2009
I hate to quote scraping content provider extraordinaire Silicon Alley Extraordinare but they have reported an obvious truth today. Recall when people were astounded to hear that Gawker Media (A premier blogging network, that owns properties like Gizmodo) had actually managed to boost ad revenues during the recession? Seemed to good to be true, and in a way it was. The numbers seem to be fair, but the reason behind the rising payouts is nothing special.
This states is nicely: “The secret, says Gawker owner Nick Denton in the memo, has been those big, bold site-skinnings.” [source]
Read: We plastered our site with more advertisements than a NASCAR racing car hood. Effective? I suppose. But at what cost? Those ads do detract from the usability of the site. Especially when Gawker adds in those exceptionally bothersome when they are the roll-over expanding ads that block your ability to view content. Nothing makes me wander off your site faster than wildly intrusive advertising. I will tolerate even the most annoying banner ad, flashing with free iPods, but put that on top of what I am trying to look out, and we will have to have words.
Most of this new real estate was/is given to a specific brand attempting to “sponsor” a whole site. It seems at the moment that the Gawker network does not have such a partner, here are the ads that you will find on Gizmodo:
All in all, those ads seem neither special or overly harsh given the total size of the Gizmodo front page. So I don’t see it, at least at the moment. Our these sponsorships such powerful revenue generating tools that even having them run part time makes up for the slack in the market, and more? If so, this is where advertising will surely go. Everyone follows the money, don’t think that bloggers are any different.
But the trend that we are seeing is simple, it is the dust bowl farmer mentality: lower prices for one ad, so we place more ads. Boosting ad inventory in a time of dropping prices is only going to do one thing, ask your local economist, lower prices. When does it end? When we have money again, of course. Until then, keep looking to Gawker to point the way. Welcome to the race to the bottom.
Posted in Advertising, Featured, Tech Blogs | Comments (2)
