21 comments

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  Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins

  4 months ago

  Two words - Project Wonderful.
  
  I used them on rizzn.com when I was doing 30k a week in traffic, and it wasn't spectacular (I didn't really throw a ton of ad spots on the site) but I was getting close to $5 CPM with very little effort.
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  Duncan Riley

  4 months ago

  never heard of them, but looking now + thx
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  Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins

  4 months ago

  no prob. they're really popular amongst the online comic artist set. Powers bigshots, like Dr. McNinja and Questionable Content.
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  Svetlana Gladkova

  4 months ago

  I've done an extensive research recently myself and still I have not heard of this network. Does it work with tech-oriented publishers or is it for comic artists more?
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  Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins

  4 months ago

  They service anyone - I was strictly tech and politics when I ran their ads. The culture is very strongly comic related, and you'll likely end up with one or two ads for comics on your site as a result of using them, but anyone coming in off the street can place an ad with them, so you'll end up with ads targetted for your site.
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  Svetlana Gladkova

  4 months ago

  Thanks for the explanation, I have bookmarked them in case the solution I have chosen for now stops to work at some point.
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  Dana

  4 months ago

  Duncan, you're sounding a little desperate in that video, I don't think there is any money in blogging unless you turn it into a real business like Mike has done. Otherwise you're just a dime a dozen blogger and frankly if I was an advertizer I wouldn't pay more than 50c CPMs because your audience are 2 page visitors without scale or reach.
  
  Best way for "professional" bloggers to make money is consulting services.
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  Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins

  4 months ago

  I disagree - not desperate. This is the content producer dilemma - we want to primarily produce content, not busy ourselves with the sales management side.
  
  It's ultimately why I landed at Mashable, as opposed to continue solo-blogging (as I've done for over a decade).
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• 

  Lenny

  4 months ago

  Dana - sorry to be blunt, but you really don't understand the blogging space. Most solid blogs (like Duncan's) have an engagement level far higher than large sites (ie, I bet time on site on this blog is twice that of a larger portal play).
  
  I have a large sports blog and regularly sell to media planners for $45 cpm. They come back because we get better results than the large players. We're smaller, yes...but if all a planner had to do was sell across the big players, then who'd need a planner?
  
  I suggest you look into the space a little further before being so confident about 'consulting services' (which don't scale).
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  Dana

  4 months ago

  Lenny - you are wrong. The eCPM rates Duncan is achieving are reflective of the rates achievable by general techo / pop blogs of his size and engagement, sub 2 pages a visit aint pretty buddy boy.
  
  Explain to me why he can't get decent CPMs then?? There is no disconnect.
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  Paula

  4 months ago

  @Duncan: how come major media sites charge CPMs upwards of $15 while blogs have to settle for much less. I mean are blog visitors less valuable to an advertiser? Is our content less 'ad-worthy'?
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  Dana

  4 months ago

  In a word, yes.
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• 

  Alden DoRosario

  4 months ago

  Jason said> I still contend that advertising, outside of search result ads, is a doomed revenue stream.
  Gotta agree that the "search economy" is where the action is ..
  
  Duncan, I sent you a separate email with thoughts. Do tell if it gets caught by the junk filter or something ..
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  Svetlana Gladkova

  4 months ago

  Duncan, speaking of Federated Media, is it only traffic restriction for them or is it also an issue of belonging to the Silicon Valley crowd, any idea on that? I mean, I have approached them once and they set for me an unbelievable traffic target to reach before they even want to talk to me which made me question why a number of blogs that they already have in the network have much lower traffic.
  
  So my concern is in this particular case it is not only about traffic, it also has other issues for them to consider - like real money can only be distributed among certain select bloggers.
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  Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins

  4 months ago

  I think they're just picky in general. I think it's primarily traffic, but getting folks on the phone over there is difficult if you're not one of their existing clients.
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  Svetlana Gladkova

  4 months ago

  In fact, I have not had problems reaching them by email and speaking to John Battelle himself - but I would not be so sure about traffic since the target they set for me is much higher than quite a number of their blogs currently has. So I could not help but jump to a conclusion that it was something like a closed club for select bloggers.
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  adam jackson

  4 months ago

  Duncan, my blog network DTT Media contains 7 sites, 4 of those are blogs. I have 100 thousand unique visitors a month across the network and visits increase by 10% every month.
  
  I've never tried to sell ads. Maybe I should? Hit me up if you're interested. adam@dailytechtalk.com
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• 

  Bluey

  4 months ago

  you might not want to elaborate - I'm not currently in blog advertising though I'd like to understand how it's possible for a blog or even a site to be profitable on ad sales alone if the impressions are not well in excess of 1m or more a month. Based on what you mention, even 4 ad areas serving 100,000 impressions at 20 cents CPM per month only works out to nothing! Is this the correct revenue formula? ((100,000 (impressions) x $0.20)/1000)*4 (ad locations) = $80 - even if you sell some banner ads at $20 CPM it's still not all that on 100,000 impressions...
  
  I must be missing something here... how is it possible to be profitable on ad revenue alone... interested to know... thanks
  
  Bluey
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  gregorylent

  4 months ago

  i paid 25 cents a day for the seattle times just to read doonesbury. private business newletters are sometimes thousands of dollars a year ...
  
  somewhere is a (micro)subscription model waiting to happen. i would gladly pay minimum 10 bucks a week for a set of blogs that i liked, maybe another 10 or 20 for a whole suite of surfing possibilities, unknowns, revenue of course to be spread out ...
  
  not thinking aol-like, something a bit wilder
  
  
  i bet isps will come up with this, as well
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  Steven Finch

  4 months ago

  Currently, Contextual advertising from Google is doing so well because they have a brand, scale and there is the ability to make 1 ad in a matter of minutes and manipulate it into any size.
  
  No one has been able to take control of display advertising in the same way that Google has. Firstly, if you are going to start a campaign you have to make either 1 ad for a specific size or like 5 different sizes, which takes time. Currently, there are ad networks, self-service platforms, but no one has been able to put everything together in 1 platform that allows publishers to control all of their ad inventory at once and maximise its yield. Most ad networks for example are all about numbers and no personal interaction to really improve $$$$
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  Brad Linder

  4 months ago

  A few months ago ProBlogger ran a list of 12 CPM alternatives to AdSense:
  
  http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/03/03/1...
  
  Through this I found AdsDaq, which lets you set your own CPM price. AdsDaq will either find advertisers to match that price or rollover to another network. It's worked pretty well for me and generates almost as much money as AdSense.
  
  A number of other companies have also launched ad networks that will compete with the likes of Federated Media. I recently signed up with Technorati Media, but there are other companies like Buzzlogic that are also working with small to medium sized blogs.
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