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Blogad pricing, redux

Christian Crumlish | April 18, 2005 - 1:22pm | 4 comments | Email This!

Tom Tomorrow says the market for blogads (for his site at least), is withering on the vine (By the way...):

...is it just me, or are the blogads drying up all over? I've slashed prices considerably and still, nothing...sure, I could go down to ten or twenty bucks an ad, but at that rate, it's just not worth cluttering up the site. (We've established what I am, we're just haggling over the price - and I do have some standards.)

Back when I started blogging here one of the first things I wrote about was the potential for the political blogad market to dry up in the lull after November, 2004. Is that what's happening now?

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Comments

Taking Order v. Selling Ads

by Chris Nolan on April 18, 2005 - 6:04pm

Christian,

If you and "Tom" take a look at the Big Boy Bloggers you'll find their ads are down, too.

That’s definitely a sign that enthusiasm for the market has tapered off although I think it's far too soon to say that on-line political advertising is dead (and if you're lowering your CPM in what is, essentially a growing market for on-line advertising over all, that's not the world's greatest business decision). What we're really seeing is the difference between selling ad and taking orders in a specific and not well served niche market.

Magazine publishers go through these sorts of down-turns every year. That's why this month's Vogue is healthy, September's enormous and February as slim as a teenager. They have a range of tricks to get around them. The discount good months and/or lock in rates early when they can so editorial and advertising ratios aren't too out of wack. Or they create standing features (the "fashion issue" the "music edition") and lump magazines together to make sales. In short, they plan ahead.

Planning and salesmanship really haven't made it to the on-line world. The idea that advertisers will find their way to a particular site without cajoling, not to mention demographic information, audited traffic numbers or even a basic sales pitch is foolhardy. It's just not going to happen.

What's needed – and hey, if you're doing this call me 'cause you can traffic my site in a heartbeat – is someone to package sites in a way that makes them appealing to advertisers in ways that magazine salesmen have mastered: by demographics, by location, by target audience. That's exercising good salesmanship, not penmanship. It's going out and selling advertising, not waiting for the phone to ring.

National campaigns vs. the rest of the time

by karichisholm on April 18, 2005 - 11:32pm

While I certainly agree with the sentiment that we need to be actively selling, and not just waiting for the "phone" to ring, there's something else at play here...

Every four years, America goes through a national political spasm called a presidential campaign. For about three to six months before the general election, all politics is national.

The rest of the time? All politics is local. It's much harder for national blogs to sell national ads. The national market is drying up. Of course, the flip side is that there's a substantial potential market for local ads. Unfortunately, most local politicos haven't yet figured out the world of blogads.

Over at BlueOregon.com, we're starting to see the early tiptoeing into blog advertising by local folks. It's taken a LOT of promotion and a LOT of giving away of free ads - but folks are suddenly starting to realize that our little $25-50/week ads are a great deal at 20,000 impressions per week. Especially when you realize just how damn targeted they are: progressive activists, electeds, hacks, and media in a small state like Oregon.

another perspective

by henrycopeland on April 19, 2005 - 2:30pm

Yep, national political advertising is a fraction of what it was six months ago. Ask any TV station. But total ad volumes are higher, and many causes ARE active. Nothing can be taken for granted. Folks who started earlier seem to have more loyal customers. Flows on individual blogs ebb and flow, and often hinge on nuances. An ad geek fact: blogs with one "premium slot" and one long(able) regular slot sustain a better flow than blogs with multiple exclusive slots.

Henry

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More Blogs=Thinner Ad Dollar Spread

by Kate Kaye on April 20, 2005 - 9:24am

It makes perfect sense that the political blog ad cash has dwindled since November, but that was pretty much guaranteed.

But as someone who talks to advertisers and ad agency folks all the time, I can confirm that all sorts of commercial advertisers are gravitating towards blog ads as a strategic component of their campaigns, or at least aware of the opportunity. I just spoke with an interactive agency exec yesterday who works with Hasbro, Warner Independent Films and H&M, and she's definitely thinking about it.

The reality is that there are WAY MORE blogs in the blog ad network and other blog media outlets like Gawker than just a year ago. Advertisers have a lot more choices, so they're obviously exploring them. The blog bucks, while they've increased in volume, are getting spread over a wider space. Of course the big guys will always attract the lion's share, but, I agree with Chris that it's up to the bloggers to compete for those ad dollars.

Also, at the risk of pissing off Henry, the Blog Ads system is becoming a bit of a beast to navigate, especially by advertisers who are new to it (i.e. practically everybody). Again, Chris is right that bloggers (or better yet, their networks) should package ad media in a way that advertisers understand: by demo-, psycho- and geo-graphic, for example. Advertisers start out knowing they need to reach a defined target -- for instance, men ages 25-34 with household incomes above 50K living in particular metro areas -- in almost all cases, that's what determines where they place their ads.

Yes, blogs are still a different animal in that, unlike CNN.com or Yahoo Entertainment, more of their audiences are Web savvy influencers who can help spur viral buzz. So, while blogs are somewhat of a special case because of that, the folks who run them can't delude themselves into thinking that the tables have turned and advertisers should be begging them to let them plug their wares. If anything, they need to offer a LOT MORE proof to advertisers, by way of more refined tracking, better ad packaging, etc. Because, while they're interested, advertisers on the whole are very risk-averse and not prone to diverting dollars from something proven to something that isn't.

Kate Kaye
Associate Editor
Personal Democracy Forum

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Kate Kaye
Editor, News and Campaign '08
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