The news that Google will now broker display ads much as it does text ads is positioned by the company as being a way for publishers to make more money by selling remnant banner space. Here is a link to the article in the WSJ: http://bit.ly/W5UEJ
I have a few issues. First of all, many vertical niche publishers already have relationships in place with ad networks that suck up and sell all of their remnant space. For example we partner with IDG Technetwork and are generally happy. There are hundreds of other networks like this. But our experience and what I have heard from others is that the revenues from these source just keep on dropping as inventory increases and advertisers demand more services for less cost-per-impression and cost-per-click. As I have said before, the media business is suffering from not so much "dollars into dimes" but "dollars into pennies."
So first, Publishers are NOT going to make any significant money from this. (4 years ago we made $600-700 per month from Google adwords. more recently, it dropped to less than $100 per month. We have removed them from our site).
This experience, which is pretty universal unless your ad page view growth outstrips Google's decreasing returns, means that web publishers like us will tell Google to "take a hike."
I've also heard from customers - advertisers - that they are growing increasingly suspect of their Google adwords investments. As such, I don't even know if the idea will fly for Google. Not everything they do works.
Maybe by placing display ads on the blogs of individuals with day jobs who currently get no revenue for their efforts - maybe they will be satisfied with a few hundred dollars per month versus nothing. But for professional web publishers, for certain, the idea that Google is now going to make us rich is a joke.
End of the Recession – is it just Me?
Is it just me, or was the Sunday Times packed with ads this weekend?
No one can predict the future. But the collective efforts of pundits media-wide generally get it right. In 2008, by April, news media outlets were falling all over themselves trying to use more catastrophic terms for the coming apocalypse - but did we pay attention?
Of course not. We are too wedded to the current trends and since the trends had been up up up at that point, to call the top of the market was just hubris. I wish I had some of that hubris. But here’s my point: it’s human nature to try and read the tea leaves and follow the path that has gone before. Which brings me to the current recession (you remember, the worst since the Great D). Most of you are still thinking things are bad - real bad. And maybe they are (take employment for example).
But the signs that this recession is swinging upward are surrounding us. So the question is….how long will it be before YOU accept this and get on board? One thousand and one studies have shown that aggressive marketers during recessions emerge with greater market share and sales and profits. You’ve been through this before too. You’ve seen it before. How much more time will you wait on the sidelines? When it feels safe, it’s too late. Is it just me?
No one can predict the future. But the collective efforts of pundits media-wide generally get it right. In 2008, by April, news media outlets were falling all over themselves trying to use more catastrophic terms for the coming apocalypse - but did we pay attention?
Of course not. We are too wedded to the current trends and since the trends had been up up up at that point, to call the top of the market was just hubris. I wish I had some of that hubris. But here’s my point: it’s human nature to try and read the tea leaves and follow the path that has gone before. Which brings me to the current recession (you remember, the worst since the Great D). Most of you are still thinking things are bad - real bad. And maybe they are (take employment for example).
But the signs that this recession is swinging upward are surrounding us. So the question is….how long will it be before YOU accept this and get on board? One thousand and one studies have shown that aggressive marketers during recessions emerge with greater market share and sales and profits. You’ve been through this before too. You’ve seen it before. How much more time will you wait on the sidelines? When it feels safe, it’s too late. Is it just me?
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