applying for ad providers...

[JCary]

Hi --

I have a few questions about ad agencies (i.e. Burstnet, Flycast, etc...)

I am creating an actor community web site, set to launch by the end of this month. Do I need to wait until my site is live before applying to these companies? Can I submit to them the URL as I'm creating it? If a company wants, let's say, 5000 minimum page views a month, what do I do for banner ads until I reach that total?

Also, I'll be providing free actor web sites to members of my site. Is that attractive to these ad agencies? Do they prohibit their banners in this way?

Thanks for any help with all these questions!

Joshua

[aspen]

Each network has different rules and requirements.

And there is also many many networks out there.

You will most likely not get a monthly check out of it until you get atlest 30,000 impressions a month.

Most companies do not pay you if your balance is less than $20 and it is not atypical to get actual CPM of less than $1 these days from banner networks.

Some random numbers:

Burst - 5000 impressions min
Engage(flycast) - 250k
Luna Network - 150k
Doubleclick - 1m
247media - 1-3m

Generally I have been hearing that both Luna and Doubleclick still pay nice rates, Engage I've heard horrible things about and burst not too hot either.

Burst easily has the lowest traffic requirement of any CPM network.

Your next rung down is your CPC/affiliate network. Advertising.com Commission Junction Valueclick etc. The payout on these is generally lower than CPM networks but there is generally not a minimum requirement here either.

But again if you're only getting 5000 impressions a month and you sign up with one of the above it could take a few years for you to get a balance over $20 depending on the clickthrough rate.

I know on my site the untargetted banners get a clickthrough of about .1% If I got 15 cents per click. I would need 10000 visitors just to make a buck fifty. SO to get a referral check I'd need 134,000 impressions. If I got 5000 per month It'd take me a hell of a long time.

On alot of ad networks the clickthrough rate will be much higher since they server untargetted ads and do not serve defaults. But just dont be expecting to bring in the dough or even pay for your hosting on anything less than 30k a month with a good ad network.

Chris

[JCary]

Thanks for your reply, aspen!

This gives me a nice insight! Also, does it matter/help if I plan on displaying 2 banners per page (1 above the scroll and 1 below)?

With that, would it be in my best interest to use 1 company for both, or might it be more beneficial to use 2 different ad networks for those placements.

I feel like I'll be able to get targeted ads since it's an actor community, right?! Won't that help in some way?

Joshua

[aspen]

Again, it varies.

Burst I think lets you have 2 ads per page, as long as they are not touching each other.

Luna allows only one.

You have to look at the terms for each carefully. Also many require that you exclusively sell ads through them, that means that you cannot use a different company for each banner ad.

And yes, targetted advertising is ideal, but also if a ad network isn't set up to target advertising to actors then they'll reject your site. Many have a set number of categories they have sites for. Like Literature, or Sports, or Webmaster Resources, things like that. Finding one that includes actors may be difficult.

The best thing you can do is shop around and find the one that is right for you.

Also newsletter advertising brings in significantly higher rates than banner advertising, remember that.

Chris

[mjames]

Originally posted by aspen
and burst not too hot either.
Chris

Just curious, what things have you heard about Burst!? I'm with them and would be curious to know. Haven't had any problems yet...

[aspen]

General complaints of CPM dropping (not as drastically as flycast) and that they're serving 40% defaults...

[mjames]

Originally posted by aspen
General complaints of CPM dropping (not as drastically as flycast) and that they're serving 40% defaults...

True... from using them, I've noticed they can server quite a lot of defaults at times... but overall, they are still the best, IMO.

[Son Nguyen]

Using 2 banners with the same content in one page could increase the CTR.