Crenk

The other day I wrote an article about the new Forbes Blog / Advertising Network and how it is taking shape. In the article I also wrote about possible rumours that the networks content might be visible on the Forbes.com sites. I received a tip that the content is already integrated with parts of the site, for example certain keywords are highlighted on the story pages, which opens a box with related content and network content. This box is powered by Lingospot and is quite similar to the technology that is offered by Sphere.

Additionally, after looking at the Forbes site in a bit more depth, I came across the Blog page which has a network integration in the middle column. The integration shows headlines from selected sources within the network. Forbes, why isnt Crenk.com integrated into this section? We obviously have some of the best content around!

Here at Crenk we have been a part of the Forbes Business and Finance Blog Network from the very beginning. Crenk has reported about this blog network a couple of time when announcing the addition of Nick Ricci and also the initial launch of the network.

At the very beginning some journalists were discussing the possibilities of Forbes paying CPM rates of anywhere between $10 - $20. Initially I thought these CPM rates were very optimistic and now I can report that this hasnt been the case here on Crenk. CPM rates has been a bit lower, but overall I think the network is definitely moving in the right direction. The advertisers that are currently involved are of a very high standard and im sure this will only grow.

I would also like to hear confirmation about whether the network blogs will have any of their content syndicated across the Forbes network of sites. There has been a lot of rumours about this and it would be great for some smaller blogs to actually get their voices heard for a change.

The BBC has long been toying with the idea of blogs. Today SixApart have announced as a nice piece of PR that they are running the blogs for the BBC on their software. The blogs themselves are for individual shows and for individual people. Each blog has its own distinct style and design. As a collective the design really lacks imagination and format. If you would like to know where you can find this lack of imagination please head to the blog network home page.

Rubicon Project is now in public beta and has even named their product, Automatic. Automatic is their ad network optimiser and for this service they will be charging 10% of your ad revenue, but say they can increase your CPM and fill rates. We will see if this works! For a while now I have been in their private beta, and im very curious to see if their service actually works and by how much.

According to Allen over at CenterNetworks, AOL is announcing that their Platform-A advertising network has just signed an exclusive agreement with Verizon. Under the agreement AOL will manage the mobile and online advertising for Verizon exclusively, but there is no real indication wether is agreement was provided on a total amount of impressions.

Back in early November of last year, I preempted the launch of Spottt. Spottt is a free link exchange between sites via a 125 x 125 widget. Spottt is developed by the guys over at Adbrite, so they have a product that needs to work and actually launch into something worthwhile. Since Adbrite has had a lot of VC Funding, they will be really expected to not just launch a product for the sake of it, and actually turn it into a commercial entity.

This brings me to the all important point, is Spottt actually going anywhere? Currently, the site is so simplistic and has a lot of competitors doing exactly the same thing. So where is it unique selling point? If I was the VC in Adbrite who put in a slice of the money, then I would expect an out strategy for Spottt and within a year or two at the most. Will this actually happen? and what features are really missing from Spottt or sites like Spottt?

Today Forbes.com have officially announced the creation of a Business and Finance Blog Network, comprising of a community of pre-screened, influential business and financial blogs.

The network will allow advertisers to target a highly engaged, exclusive niche audience of senior business decision makers and affluent investors easily and effectively. Four hundred-plus blogs have already joined the network, with many more expected to sign on before the official launch in the next few weeks.

Nick Ricci has been appointed General Manager, Sales. He will be responsible for overseeing the sales, marketing and promotion for the Blog Network as well as the Forbes Audience Network (FAN), which launched in November 2007.  Nick joins Forbes.com from About.com, where he served as Senior Vice President, Sales and Ad Operations. He has also held senior sales management and marketing positions at Times Mirror Magazines, Cox Interactive Sales, and Hachette Filipacchi Media US. Nick is already in the process of hiring and building a dedicated network sales team.

“I’m thrilled that Nick has joined Forbes.com to oversee the sales efforts for the Blog Network,” added Spanfeller. “He is a seasoned executive with several years of sales and marketing experience who will play a key role in driving the network’s success.”

Crenk is one of the four hundred blogs that has already signed up to the Forbes.com network. Im not too sure how the network will perform, but the expectations are high and from all reports so is the CPM rates that we can expect. Overall, this initiative seems to be a step forward for Forbes, who are trying to cash in on selling advertising across their network and then potentially grabbing millions more impressions from these blog partners.

It has been reported over at 901am that Adconion, an online advertising network, has secured the largest financial funding of an online media venture in European history. The investment of $80 million was led by Index Ventures, who were joined by existing investor Wellington Partners, and represents the first investment made from Index’s recently announced growth fund. Index partners’ Dominique Vidal, former CEO of Yahoo! Europe, and Giuseppe Zocco, the firm’s co-founder, will join Adconion’s board of directors.

Picture this - you are a blogger. Your traffic is limited so the major ad networks don’t want to touch you. CPM ads yield too little and CPC ads just.. well, they aren’t getting clicked, and if you click them, Google will ban you.

What do you do? Well there’s good news. You can sell ads, especially those popular square button (125×125) image ads on a Pay Per Day basis. Pay Per Day is a new pricing model that allows bloggers to earn money for each day an ad is displayed on their blogs. In other words, if you are the kind of blogger who can’t deal with the issues that surround validating whether clicks are valid or not, or if an impression was actually delivered, pricing your ad inventory on a PPD basis will most likely be the best fit for you.

The Status Quo

There are so many companies that will offer to optimize your ads or analyse the most effective places to place your ads in order to generate a lot of clicks. While I am not knocking any of these services, I believe the PPD pricing model is more simple and far superior because your earnings are predictable and guaranteed as long as you display the ads.

A lot of bloggers currently sell their ad inventory by either placing an “Advertise Here” link on their site. The disadvantage here is that the chances of selling inventory via an Advertise Here” link is wholly dependent on whether a potential advertiser happens to visit your site. Selling remnant inventory through ad networks can be worse if the ad network just delivers untargeted, low paying so called “run-of-network” ads to your blog.

The Way Forward

Okay, now that you get the picture, what is the way forward. Well ideally, you want to sell your ad inventory directly to the advertisers. It is worth noting that the advertisers who are likely to pay the big bucks will most likely want to track the performance of their ad campaigns, so claiming your site generates 10,000 unique visitors a month without an independent affirmation will (most likely) not sway the big money advertiser.

This is where Aductions comes into play. Aductions is a new and cool advertising platform that allows bloggers to sell their ad inventory on a Pay Per Day basis and crucially, it also allows advertisers to find your ad space easily, buy your ad inventory and track their ad campaigns.

In addition to tracking their ads, advertisers can also see the geographic and demographic reports on the ad space they want to buy. This is very advantageous to the bloggers who do not generate a lot of traffic but have a highly concentrated audience from a particular area, or that fit a specific demographic.

Finally, there is an option that allows you to continue monetizing your blog via other networks if an advertiser hasn’t bought your ad inventory. In other words, you can still display Google ads through Aductions. All you need to do is select the 3rd party ad option when creating your ad space.

Oh yeah, this is where it gets really interesting. You can also withdraw your earnings as soon as an ad has been served to your ad space. This means that if you sell 10 days worth of ad inventory at $1 a day, you can start withdrawing your money on the first day.

You can register or find out more on how it works by visiting Aductions.com.

I have long been playing around with the idea of monetizing Crenk but for all the trouble it just doesnt seem worth it at the moment. Ad networks tend to take the majority of the money and dont really give too much back in return. Hence, i thought i would try an experiment, and go Advertising Network Free!

The aim is to provide Advertising on Crenk from an in-house solution and do it cheap. This way i hope that i can provide real value for money and not just give it all to the middleman (ad network). Hence from now until the end of the year the following prices will stand, no matter what my traffic ranking is (and hopefully that should really increase).

• 125 x 125 Banner Site Wide = $20 per month
• Text Ad Link Site Wide = $10 per month

I really want to try to show people that they dont have to use Ad Networks to make a decent amount of money, but we will just have to wait and see if this is viable!