Reach Machines » Longtail Ad Placements Lift Performance

April 7, 2008

Longtail Ad Placements Lift Performance

Filed under: media planning — Tags: advertising, marketing, media planning — bstraley @ 12:46 am

iMedia Connection has an interesting post about the value of vertical niche sites to online marketing campaigns. In the piece, Russ Fradin makes the excellent point that media buys that include a substantial number of niche sites can significantly improve campaign performance.

We couldn’t agree more as our flagship service identifies the richest marketing opportunities across the Web and through the tail.

A few comments on the underlying drivers of the changes that are necessitating a new, more nuanced approach to online media planning and buying:

1. Consumers are in control. They seek, find, and share valuable content on multiple sites and in a variety of formats. Oftentimes, the most engaging and popular spots are created by the audiences themselves: see MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook.
2. Costs to produce and maintain sites and content continue to decline. As a result, barriers to create a publishing enterprise are insignificant.
3. Means of monetization are ubiquitous. Thanks to Overture, AdSense, and the too-numerous-to-name self-service ad platforms, it is possible for anyone to earn advertising revenue. I say possible because it’s a lot harder than it might seem to generate more than a few bucks a month in advertising revenue but that reality isn’t stopping millions from having a go.
4. Campaign measurement begets campaign management. Advertisers can now measure the effectiveness of a campaign down to the impression and can optimize accordingly.

Given these market dynamics, niche sites are a critical component of any media plan because they offer the best combination of relevant content and publisher incentives. The former is important because the relevance of not only the content but the site itself lends credibility to an advertiser’s message (provided the message is equally relevant). The latter matters because the greater the incentive for the publisher to run your ad, the more likely the placement will be cost-effective.

While there are significant structural and technological barriers to making it efficient to buy 100% of one’s advertising at the site level, planners need to be aware of the properties further down the tail that could move the needle for their campaigns. There are powerful incentives for doing so and using tools like Reach Machines to help them along the way.

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