I was impressed last night with the level of ad revenue flowing in the last two months, but wasn't sure what to make of it. First thing I checked was traffic, and CoasterBuzz in particular is about the same this year, and actually down a point or two. Disappointing as that might be, ad revenue, on the other hand, is way up... almost 40% over last year. So what's going on?
I have two theories. One is simply that companies are spending money again online. Last year was pretty dismal at times, so that's a pretty low bar, but it's impressive even compared to years prior. I haven't seen any recent news from the IAB or anything, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't a huge trend up in play for the online ad industry in general.
The second thing is that Google has really figured out how to match ads with content. I give dibs on my inventory to Federated Media, and they do OK in short streaks, but right now it's all Google. It's a little harder to tell what's going on there, because they don't really tell you anything about who is advertising or how much anyone pays, they just tell you how many ads, how many clicks and what the CPM is. It's clear that most of the ads are in fact CPM and not per click, though that great matching sure does result in unusually high click-through ratios. But look at the ads... Disney, Great Wolf, various Vegas attractions and hotels... it's obvious the right stuff for our audience.
It's very encouraging to see, because I started to fear that smaller publishers like me would have a hard time keeping up in the long run, but perhaps that's not the case. After more than a decade, I've learned to temper any enthusiasm, because it definitely comes in waves. Hopefully this one will last a couple of years. Moving has been awesome, but it also made me po! And I've got an extra mouth to feed. :)
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