Comments on: Remnant ads and the advertisers who love them

By: To my first 10,000 blog subscribers: Thank you! | Andrew Chen (@andrew_chen)

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:56:56 +0000

[...] Remnant ads and the advertisers who love them [...]

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:52:49 +0000

Good post. I sold the first three impressions on our apps for $1.50 cpm because it seemed like such a better rate than the +/-$.20 cpm we were getting from the plug-in ROS remnant networks. The advertiser has been thrilled with the campaign, and now I know why. These impressions are probably worth a lot more.

By: vis fCh

vis fCh — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:26:24 +0000

Stanley, you write:
“Boggles my mind to see the mad rush to build Facebook, Open Social, and Web apps without any regard to this. Getting big quickly can only go so far.”
and contrast this with DPReview.

Facebook does what it does; whomever “buys” into their model should be held accountable. On the other hand, the Facebook types could claim that $.2 is mighty plenty when multiplied with their numbers. At yet another level, they could start charging more if, say, micro-communities dedicated to digital photography develop…

By: swong

swong — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:58:42 +0000

Agreed. Often times the sell through rates for the higher priced CPM based ads ($3-$10) on mid to long tail sites are only 10-25%. The shame is, I've also seen numerous business plans where CEOs make fatal assumptions and project growth of their entire inventory at $5 CPM.

In reality publishers employ a waterfall model using ad server tools such as OpenX, Google Ad Manager, etc. in an attempt to maximize their revenues. The trick is to test and choose from the 300+ ad networks that work well within the context that you create.

Do eCPMs of $7+ exist for entire sites? Of course they do, goes back to supply and demand for the context the publisher is trying to create from advertisers.

For example, a shopping reviews site will be worth much more on a per page basis ($5-10 eCPM) and with much higher sell throughs than an untargeted social network site (<$0.20 eCPM). With this in mind a site like DPReview is much more profitable than a site like Twitter.

Boggles my mind to see the mad rush to build Facebook, Open Social, and Web apps without any regard to this. Getting big quickly can only go so far.

By: Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:01:23 +0000

yep, totally agree… it's especially bad when they can quote the prices they get for premium video pre-rolls for their entire site

By: Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:01:06 +0000

yep, totally agree… it's especially bad when they can quote the prices they get for premium video pre-rolls for their entire site

By: spanky

spanky — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:38:01 +0000

I think it's also important to point out the the impression price points can be represented by a pyramid – with the $10 CPM on top – meaning just a few imps. Don't you love it when sites quote $5 CPMs, as if ALL of the inventory is selling for that? I'm amazed by how many CEOs fail to understand the CPM pyramid…