Smallbrain Solutions

Well, maybe not cheap…

Gary Stein from Jupiter Research suggests that the online ad inventory shortage is for real, but that the startling price rises have more to do with poor targeting on the part of buyers - as well as the ego-factor of having your brand in a prime slot.

Definitely true. Once again, it is important to think about your online ad placement just like anything else. Don’t buy a spot on a kids program if you are looking for voters. The best thing to do is make sure that you are working with your vendor to demographically or behaviorally target your ads. Barring that, try to make sure that you aren’t paying for impressions (with the possible exception of BlogAds) but rather cost-per-acquisition.

As for BlogAds, it is REALLY important to be careful with your placement. With organizations I work with, our cost-per-name has DOUBLED in the last few years due to the spike in prices. We can now get a cheaper per-name rate by purchasing network ads. We still do both, but you need to be careful about where you place - and make sure to adjust your buy based on real results - don’t just buy it and forget it. If you do, you are wasting a lot of money (I promise to not tell your development/finance director).

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Sorry for the short post. I am not sure which side of the line I come down on about the FEC regulation of online expenditures (love the medium - hate loopholes in campaign finance regulation) but it is worth noting that firedupamerica.com got an exception (unanimous, no less) from the FEC, despite their intent to expressly advocate for candidates…

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Via ADrants, Rogers Cadenhead reports that the Drudge Retort, Smirking Chimp and Raw Story were kicked out of “Advertise Liberally” an ad network of BlogAds. According to Roger (in the comments) it is because they aren’t a “blog”.

Now, I would hope that there is some kind of reason for this and I don’t want to speculate - but this seems really weird, as these are all popular sites (disclosure - I have purchased ads for clients on Smirking Chimp and RawStory as well as on Kos and MyDD - who set up the network).

I mean, if it is their network, I suppose they can do what they want, but I am a little worried when Mr. Cadenhead says this:

Instead, I’ve just given six months of effort and free ad space worth $2,200 to a liberal ad network that’s now my competition.

That is soo0oooooooo not cool. They were DONATING the space???

Update: (note to self - google first, THEN post) Just a Bump in the Beltway has the email from Chris Bowers. I can see why they have their restrictions, but it is awfully snotty… Also, Watching the Watchers has some REALLY nasty email from Chris Bowers…

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Well, Google Base and Google Analytics are now live. Holy crap.

Interesting stuff, really. Particularly Google Base, which seems like it will be a fantastic traffic generator for the future (probably not immediately as it is still total geek-zone) but I would certainly recommend that candidates and non-profits post their stuff. They allow posting via XML, so you can keep your site content up there. Devillshly clever.

(Disclosure: I own 0.69 shares of google stock)

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Ok, so I haven’t posted in about a year. As you can see, I am still coding the wordpress templates… Anyway, at least it is functional, if ugly.

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