The Long Tail of Advertising
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008I have been thinking a lot about the so-called “premium sites”; you know … the sites that everybody wants to advertise on. Most buyers will pay above the market value for sites and placements they perceive as premium inventory. I always feel somewhat frustrated when all I hear about is buyers and their ad agencies fighting over “premium/high profile” sites. Cue: Specialized Niche Ad Networks. Though they are considered less valuable than “first tier,” or “premium,” sites, these niche websites and networks may well prove to be where the real action is – the true cash cow, the big ROI, the “long tail”.
Here is why …
What is the real value to a food manufacturer of a photo management and sharing site that has several million pageviews versus a smaller site that sells food related products? You’d think this is a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at the perceived value these websites get just because they are high in traffic volume. My argument is that niche networks, like the MyWebGrocer Grocery Ad Network, are far more valuable and therefore more “premium” to, for example, CPG companies than say a national newspaper syndicate or a premium social networking site are to the CPGs, as the Grocery Network combines premium -reach, -branding, -targeting and -RELEVANCE.
Why blow your ad spend on large, high-priced, “premium” homepages when you can just as easily and more effectively reach and target the same person during a more relevant experience (while shopping online or browsing a Recipe page or on a Grocery Shopping blog)? It really does matter where the user is reached: if we know that after Jane Doe checks out the latest celebrity rumor and gossip on Us Magazine, she always then goes to update her grocery list on the Nichols’ Supermarket Website? Does that mean if the same ad is shown on the 2 sites it must be valued higher on Us Magazine? Is it really worth 10 times the CPM to reach Jane on Us Magazine than to reach her on Nichols’ Supermarket website or even on her social networking blog? In fact, I think it’s more valuable for a CPG company to reach Jane with a Cereal ad or a Dog Food ad while she is in the act of shopping than while she is reading about A-Rod’s latest flirtations with Madonna on Us Magazine!
Smaller, niche sites are extremely efficient at reaching and connecting to their target audience. MyWebGrocer is leveraging the power of aggregating grocery stores into a powerful large network of highly targeted niche grocery websites. The “long tail” has afforded MyWebGrocer to extend the reach of advertising in an incredibly cost effective and profitable way. The word “premium” needs to be erased from the dictionary, because thanks to the Long Tail such a term no longer exist in this day-in-age.
Charles Rutanhira
