10,000 impressions...

Hi,

Just wondering what kind of revenue you can expect based on impressions?

For example, in the last 10,000 advert impressions, we've generated 20 clicks, and zero cash. Is this quite usual?

 

Depends on quality and targeting.

On a forum site I run that could make nowt, on a lead gen site that could make thousands.

 

On our network, I can run one advert on the whole network of 18 sites, in addition, target one advert to just the hotel pages across all 18 sites, have a different ad for say Cardiff, and then run a separate ad on just one page, using a new Affiliate ad panel.

Our affiliate ad CMS works great, but looks like I need to choose more relevant ads!!
Maybe offering banner ads to local businesses could be a better way to go...anyone fancy a free trial?

 

If it were me I wouldn't be running traditional banner spots at all on a site such as yours. Customised conversion points such as hotel bookings etc are likely to offer far better returns. And offering 'premium' listings to local businesses in your most trafficed areas.

 

Thanks Peter... Will look into.

 

hi Phil,

i've tried doing what your doing, in the same market, on a network of sites and imho you're wasting your time...

You will not generate any decent long term revenue monetizing those sites like that.

pm if you want to chat.

 

If you want to get a vague idea of how much the space might be worth, you could look at http://www1.thomsonlocal.com/displays-estimator/ and see how much Thomson Local would charge a business to get a premium spot in that particular category.

For example if I look at "plumber" and "cambridge" the tool estimates 3,522 displays a year at 11p per display i.e. it's going to cost an advertiser 390.72 pounds a year for a premium spot in the "plumber" category for the "cambridge" region. And searching the actual directory shows me that 6 businesses were willing to upgrade at 400 pounds each for that area/category combination.

And that in turn tells you several things. It puts one potential value on traffic within that area and vertical, and it also suggests that if you can get more to much more traffic than that, it could be worth disproportionately more to the businesses since they'll find it difficult to get such targetted traffic elsewhere.

To illustrate that second point, if I choose "self catering accommodation" and "cambridge" I get 1,212 impressions per year at 33p each or a listing value of 399.96

However, my own Cambridge site had over 37,000 impressions in the self-catering category during the same one year period. So that would give a listing in that space a theoretical value of over 10,000 pounds based on Thompson's math. At the moment I'm not doing so, but it shouldn't be that hard to sell slots at say 500-1,000 pounds a year by illustrating the vast savings to be made vs a large well-known directory.

Another place to look for some idea of pricing is http://rates.yelldirect.com/InternetRates.aspx where you can dig down and see what Yell would charge a business for a premium listing in a particular category and area. They sell 3 slots per category, and have a specific price for #1 #2 and #3 position packages.

For example, they are charging £4459 a year for the top slot in "plumbers" "cambridge" (what they define as Cambridge is actually a fairly wide area that takes in parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. Again, this can help put a theoretical value on ad space.

 

hi Edwin, but really, not sure if I agree..

I would have expected better from you than the old entrepreneurs trick of 'if I just sell hundreds for X amount then i'll make MEGA amount' and be laughing all the way to the bank - i'm not sure you know this market?

The theoretical value of an ad's postion and actually extracting the dosh from a client (consistently) are two different things.

Out of interest are all the accommodation listings on cambridgecouk paying you direct?

 

Nope, everything on the site's free at the moment. Very much still on the build-out stage at the moment, so not bothering with ads.

However from my experience of running other (non-geo) sites, once you get to a certain level of traffic (and hence prominence within the niche) advertisers definitely come out of the woodwork willing to pay to get better placement and access to more of the traffic. I don't see why that should magically be different in the geo space compared to any other situation.

 

Yell and Thomson are in general a waste of money if you're trying to promote a business... using their numbers is not going to give your advertisers a return on their money.

If you want to do that, get the years money up front or expect a lot of month 2 cancellations...

 

It all depends on what the impressions are showing and so we could all give an overall average of what we got for adsense or affiliation?!

10'000 on average would maybe give me £140 for adsense

 

BTW, it may be easier to sell ads if you can put together "blocks" of geographically close areas so that you can sell regional ad packages covering the whole group. For example, if you had 5 sites in close proximity to each other, you could sell ads on the "Hotels" page of all 5 of the sites as a single package.

In other words, become a regional specialist rather than a generalist (i.e. the biggest fish in a smaller pond).

 

Phil, would it be useful to canvas this group for knowledge of any developed geos that are actually known to make a serious revenue stream (that is, they are a business in their own right, not just a domain in a portfolio of many domains)? We could then observe their affiliate/adwords/direct advertising methods.

The only one I know of off hand is Brighton.co.uk. It's rather a schizophrenic site that runs on many subdomains, but it has some serious traffic. It runs adwords and direct advertising (it publishes its advertising rate card) but have yet to find any affiliate ads.

If this is too OT tell me, I'll start another thread.

 

Yes Agreed just as most of my rev comes from local geo websites it's ideal for businesses.

10'000 a month people looking for an Aerial Fitter but spread throughout the UK or 200 from the city you do business in.

 

That's true for a big geo site with lots of search traffic.

If you rank 1 or 2 for "geo service" or "geo product", then people phone you up and say "how do I get on your page"?

 

@ Phil - 10,000 banner ad impressions and no sales isn't so surprising, especially if the banner ads are lost to banner blindness because of their location on a page or are of no immediate interest to your visitors.

@ Julian - Personally, I think Edwin's post was an excellent one. Where I would differ is that you will find it very difficult to sell impressions to anyone these days, even if you are as big a name as Thomson Local. The market has moved on, with pay per click much more prevalent and indeed measurable in terms of results from an advertiser's point of view.

To use Thomson Local as a yardstick to show why you offer better value is a good idea too, even if you don't go down the CPM route.

@ Anyone who is still reading this post - I would look to sell that ad space to local companies on a fixed fee monthly or annual basis. If you have the local traffic they need and they see the results to justiify the costs, you will have advertisers for life.

Alternatively, you could give that space "free of charge" to businesses that pay for a premium listing elsewhere on your site. In this instance, I would use a Share Of Voice model, with each premium advertiser getting an Xth share of impressions.

 

I like the idea of offering it out to those who have paid for a premium listing... and they get a share.

The way the site is set up, users earn points, which they currently can;t do anything with. These could be used to 'buy' banner advertising space... just a thought, and gives back something to those who have contributed the most.

P.S.Turned the ads off at present...