Tag: Sales tactics

Online Sales Report Gives 6 Insights for Success

Websites large and small benefit greatly from a good online sales report. It’s a high-yield tactic that requires little time and effort.

Online sales report
Five data points in an online sales report point to total revenue. © Scott Bateman

Websites large and small benefit greatly from a good online sales report. It’s a high-yield tactic that requires little time and effort.

Even the smallest Web site will find useful insights from a simple report tracking sales performance.

A spreadsheet showing six key trends with help even if a site has nothing else but Google AdSense, Media.net or some other remnant provider.

A spreadsheet with these data points will trigger ideas about where to place ads on a site and how many to have on each page.

The report also shows whether site changes are helping or hutting ad performance, what steps to take with ad inventory and other approaches to building revenue.

Continue reading “Online Sales Report Gives 6 Insights for Success”

Online Advertising Models: CPC, CPM or CPA?

Online advertising models show up on Web sites in several forms — cost per click (CPC), cost per thousand (CPM) and cost per acquisition (CPA).

Online advertising models show up on Web sites in several forms — cost per click (CPC), cost per thousand (CPM) and cost per acquisition (CPA).

Publishers and advertisers should know and consider all three depending on the situation.

But it’s clear that CPC and CPM dominate online advertising. CPC in particular is the dominate form for major Internet players such as Bing, Facebook and Google, while CPM is often preferred for other sites, especially ones oriented to content.

CPC is popular with text-oriented ads that appear on search engines while CPM is popular with image-oriented banner /display ads. In the first case, the emphasis is on response. In the second, the emphasis is on branding. All advertising strives for some combination of branding and response.

 

Online pricing models
The above graph shows the popularity of CPC and CPM pricing models through the first half of 2014. Data: IAB; chart © Promise Media

Cost Per Click (CPC) Advertising

Cost per click is popular with publishers who use services such as Google AdSense, AdBrite, etc. It is especially popular with advertisers because of the ability to track return on investment. It is the primary form of advertising on search engines.
Continue reading “Online Advertising Models: CPC, CPM or CPA?”

Should You Sell Your Own Ads on Your Website?

Many publishers reach a point where they wonder if they should sell ads on their own websites. The choice depends on answering five questions.

Many publishers reach a point where they wonder if they should sell ads on their own websites.

They often already make money by displaying ads from Google AdSense, Media.net and other vendors on their sites.

They might decide they are not making enough money and want to increase their total revenue.

These publishers often have tried other forms of easy advertising such as affiliate marketing and found that it doesn’t pay well.

Whether or not someone should try selling their own ads will depend on the answers to the following questions. Continue reading “Should You Sell Your Own Ads on Your Website?”

Boost Ad Impressions to Make Up for Declining CPMs, CPCs

Google has revealed a simple strategy in addressing its declining cost per clicks: increase total ad volume faster than the declining CPC.

ArrowsThe largest online advertising company on the planet is proving that it can increase revenue every quarter, but it is finding that it must overcome a steadily declining cost per click.

Google has been reporting quarterly earnings that include two interesting statistics.

One is that the volume of paid clicks is increasing. The other is that the cost per click is decreasing.

Despite the cost per click decline, total revenue from all Google sites continue to increase. Continue reading “Boost Ad Impressions to Make Up for Declining CPMs, CPCs”

Ad Targeting Creates Opportunities for Both Publishers and Advertisers

Ad targeting gains customeTargeted Advertisingrs for advertisers and at the same time gains revenue for publishers.

Ad targeting gains customeTargeted Advertisingrs for advertisers and at the same time gains revenue for publishers.

It also is a partial answer to the dominance of online advertising by Google and Facebook with their ability to use contextual advertising (which also is a form of ad targeting).

Online targeted advertising is the ability to reach consumers based on their demographic, geographic and other types of individual data.

Google’s DoubleClick ad-serving software provides the ability to target by geography and other characteristics. Continue reading “Ad Targeting Creates Opportunities for Both Publishers and Advertisers”

Sales Promotion Lays Groundwork for Extra Revenue

online sales promotionOnline sales promotion is a series of tactics that leads a customer to make a purchase or click on an ad on a Web site.

It is both simple to implement and often results in easy money. Yes, it can result in easy money.

A direct sales operation for a Web site means that its staff contacts potential advertisers to persuade them to buy ad campaigns.

  • A typical sale may take weeks, months and sometimes even years to develop after:
  • Identifying a potential customer
  • Contacting that customer
  • Convincing the customer to accept a meeting
  • Developing and presenting a proposal
  • Negotiating specific terms of an agreement including price, impression level, etc.
  • Having second and third meetings
  • Closing the deal or receiving a rejection

The investment of time is significant. A typical close ratio online ranges from 5 to 10 percent of total contacts. Although the odds of getting a contract are low, the revenue from a closed deal usually makes up for the labor that failed to produce a contract with the 10 to 20 other attempts.

Effective sales promotion can reduce that investment of time and increase the odds of closing a deal. Continue reading “Sales Promotion Lays Groundwork for Extra Revenue”

Online Classified Ads Build Site RPMs and Revenue

An effective online classified ad strategy will provide a valuable revenue stream that enhances that revenue coming from other sources such as display ads.

An effective online classified ad strategy will provide a valuable revenue stream that enhances that revenue coming from other sources such as display ads.

Just to be clear, online classifieds are pure text ads presented in a directly-style format. In effect, they are a form of paid content.

A site that focuses mainly on display ads — say three to four ads per page — will have an RPM limited by those ad positions. But imagine what happens to the RPM when those three to four ads positions are on pages with classifieds. Continue reading “Online Classified Ads Build Site RPMs and Revenue”