The revolution is here! Or at least that’s the way it feels in light of the latest research from eMarketer.
As old media continues to decline, people media such as blogs and Social Networks look set to become big business over the next 5 years.
According to Media Week:
“Ad spending on Web sites that have built their traffic on user-gen staples like social networking, photo sharing and amateur video is expected to soar to $4.3 billion in 2011, according to a new report issued by eMarketer. That’s a whopping increase of 330 percent versus the $1 billion expected to be spent in the space this year – which is itself more than double the $450 million in ad revenue tracked by eMarketer in 2006.”
There were fears that this sea change in user generated content would run out of steam and ad revenues with it. However, a rapidly growing army of marketers and PR companies are realising how this brave new world is here to stay. Why? Simply because the figures are now speaking volumes:
eMarketer has estimated that by 2011, there will be 95 million Web users creating content online, up from 64 million last year.
The point to note from this is that users do not only generate, they also consume content. That’s a growing and powerful target audience for business to tap into. The demographic of these users is interesting too. We know they are predominantly young, discerning early adopters - viral heaven!
Posted by Peter Brady on Fri 6th July 2007 at 06:00 AM, Filed in Paid To Post
For some reason the paid to post business model leaves me feeling a little uncomfortable.
In truth, this feeling is totally illogical given that this kind of thing has been going on in old media for decades.
My objections are further dulled by a couple of other factors:
1. Do you actually like the product or service you’re being asked to post about?
2. Are you confirming that the post is sponsored?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then my discomfort is almost completely exorcised.
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I was interested to see reference made at Link Building blog to Auction Ads. It’s been a while since I’ve seen their name mentioned and it kind of reminded me to take a closer look at what they do.
So for the uninitiated, here is a quick summary:
How do they work?
“When your site’s visitors click on an Auction Ad listing and take an action on eBay you earn cash. Actions are defined as a Winning Bid, a Buy-it-Now or a confirmed user registration. AuctionAds is committed to paying out a minimum of 100% of eBay commission revenue. See eBay’s affiliate program for details on the payout.”
In theory this should be great for product based blogs.
Payments
“We send out payments the first of every month via PayPal. The payment is for all revenue generated the previous month. There is a $10 minimum for earnings.”
This is always a useful feature for smaller publishers.
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Patrick Gavin is the top man at Text Link Ads and therefore I thought it might be handy to summarise some of his pearls of wisdom, taken from various historic interviews.
Speaking about acceptance or rejection from the program:
“Yes it is a combination of: traffic (derived from Alexa data), back links (from Yahoo’s site explorer), and the theme of your website. PR is not a factor in our algorithm but link popularity is a factor and can cause new sites that don’t have much to not be accepted right away. We do re check sites that were denied in the past every couple of months and invite sites that meet our requirements back in.”
Speaking about how exactly Text Link Ads market their services?.
“We have over 10,000 affiliates and run an aggressive banner campaign on many top websites. We drive a lot of eye balls to our sites and work hard with our site to educate the visitors on our product to give our publishers the best chance of selling ad spots through our marketplace. We do believe most sites can sell more spots by using TLA than flying solo. We do automate the ad delivery and payment process which takes a lot of work away from the publisher which is the key to our service.”
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I think the important thing to note from my experience with Text Link Ads is the very simple interface. Once you’ve set up the code in your blog it’s purely a matter of letting the dice roll. There is the added feature of ad approval by email which offers publishers optional control, but as a rule the whole thing is automated.
My own experience tends to indicate that the take up in your link slots (which can be as many as 10) is gradual. However, the momentum does build and advertisers tend to remain loyal.
Revenues are largely a function of site popularity e.g Page Rank, Alexa etc but there appears to be no reason why each link sold can earn somewhere between $15 and $50, which does add up if you manage to sell out of inventory.
You can get a picture of your potential Text Link earning power by paying a visit to the rather handy Text Link Calculator.
