ADVERTISEMENT PUBLISHING

Your affiliate service does not appreciate a good impression.

July 11, 2011

So you have created your Frankenstein website and now you need to generate enough revenue to feed him. Well, publishing an ad or ten should help the cause, if done correctly. Properly executed advertising can be useful for the visitors to your website and finacially rewarding for your business. Let's take a look at internet advertising and simplify the decision making process.

Internet Advertising - 1 Zero 1

Despite all of the publishing opportunities out there, there are essentially only a handful of models to choose from. We will focus on the three most common. Generally you will find that the advertiser will pay you for one of three metrics. They are impressions (C.P.M.), clicks (C.P.C.) or acquisitions (C.P.A.). Each of these metrics are fairly straight forward, but we will briefly discuss each one.

The C.P.M. payout metric will pay a certain rate for every 1000 impressions you deliver. Now, some advertisers may qualify their terms by only counting unique impressions, which is controlled by serving cookies to each visitor and will prevent one visitor from being counted twice. It only stands to reason then, that unique impressions should be more valuable than impressions alone. Be sure to clarify this and ensure your not being under payed.

The next metric most commonly agreed upon is C.P.C. and this pays the publisher per click. So regardless of how many visitors view that advertisement, you will only generate revenue when visitors click on the ads. This is a “pay per performance” model and is preferred over C.P.M. by most advertisers. Generally, the C.P.C. rate will exceed any C.P.M. rate on the market, as well it should.

The last payout metric is the C.P.A. metric and in this agreement, the advertiser pays the publisher on a per acquisition bases. This means that not only does the visitor need to click on the advertisement, but they must also proceed to purchase a qualifying product or service. Now, these terms are undoubtedly the, far and away, favorite of any advertiser on the planet which we will discuss shortly.

With a basic understanding of how online advertising rates are determined, you now have to establish which metric or combination of metrics will suit your website and its visitors best. This can be determined easiest, by knowing your customer. If you take the time to research your target market and understand what it is that they are looking for, you will be able to select your advertising and the appropriate model much more effectively.

This question must be answered by you and will take time to perfect. We can tell you that any of the three terms we have discussed here will not work for all websites or even all pages in one website. They each have there own advantages in certain situations. For the most part, the easiest revenue metric here is C.P.M. and that is because it requires little thought or preparation. As long as your site gets significant traffic, it will generate revenue. However, if employed on the wrong web page or website it may underperfom the other two options.

Therefore, when your customers and their desires are well known, you should consider either C.P.C. or C.P.A. first. That being said, be careful! All affiliate programs are not created equal. When the rate is significantly higher than the highest C.P.C. rate available and your advertisements are well targeted, these pay per performance models are likely to perform better. It is also important to understand that the more narrow the demographic of your visitor the more accurate your ad targeting will be. Said another way, as the subject matter becomes more specific, the more narrow your audience will get and better your ability to choose useful ads for those visitors will be.

Now, as we stated earlier, your advertisers preference is a C.P.A. agreement first and a C.P.C. second. There are very good reasons for this. One obvious reason is that they only have to pay you when you deliver them traffic or sales (each of which, are extremely valuable). This means that they are receiving free advertising for all other visitors. Additionally, you are losing a visitor to your advertiser every time they click. This alone, is very disconcerting.

Therefore, when in doubt, choose the guaranteed revenue that pay per impression offers and only consider the alternatives when you have a thorough understanding of your customers and can offer advertisements that are useful to them and profitable for you.

Finally, do yourself a favor when choosing a program, and search for those which enable you to control the advertisements and the payout rate. Allowing your advertiser to control what they pay you along with the content displayed on your site is just poor judgment. Only in rare circumstances is this a wise business decision.

It is also imperative that you read the terms of the agreement thoroughly (as painful as it is) before making a decision. Keep a copy of this and compare it every few months to the one your network or affiliate has published to note any changes. Although, you can opt out at any point, there will be a considerable amount of time and energy wasted on a poorly selected program. The application process along with setup and maintenance requires a lot of work, so do your research and benefit from it. Good luck and let us know how your doing at feedback@domaindevelopment.ca.