A consumer's perspective - sports fan
In the early part of this decade life for Publishers and Advertisers was fairly simple and lucrative. Large Publishers commanded the lion’s share of the internet audience with their content and Advertisers knew exactly where they needed to go to get the maximum yield for their online advertising spend. Life was good. However, as the internet continued it’s exponential growth not only in terms of volume of users but also in terms of the number of sites with specialized content, large Publishers found themselves competing for Advertisers against independent long-tail sites and large Advertisers struggled to reach the maximum number of relevant internet audiences for their products and services.
To dissect this further, let’s take a look at my favorite subject - Sports. I would also say that I think I am pretty representative of a typical sports fan in the US. In the early part of this decade, ESPN.com was perhaps one of a handful of sites that had all your sporting news and updates. Anything from scores, statistics, player trades, and news were all available primarily on ESPN.com. I personally spent about 70% of my internet browsing time on ESPN.com in the early part of the decade – and probably close to 100% of my sports-netting was on ESPN.com. If an Advertiser such as Nike or Adidas wanted to reach a mass number of sports enthusiasts, like myself, ESPN.com was the place to advertise. However, as the Internet boom continued, two things happened:
- The creation of specialized sporting sites. Sites with dedicated content to a particular subject matter or sports team started to emerge. Eg. chicagobulls.com, Yankees.com, lakers.com, thewolverine.com, etc.
- The creation of independent sporting blogs. All of a sudden fans, analysts, and even athletes themselves had an outlet into the sporting world where their opinions were now desirable content.
Where I was spending 100% of my sports-netting time on ESPN.com back in 2002, that percentage is now probably more like 10%. For my college football news I go to thewolverine.com and mgoblog.com. For tennis news I go to atp.com. For news on trade rumors for my favorite baseball team I go to prosportsdaily.com. The availability of specialized sporting content so readily available has significantly shifted my “eyeballs” from ESPN.com to multiple sites across the web. In 2002 if Nike or Adidas wanted to advertise to the typical sports fan like myself, all they had to do was place their ads on ESPN.com. In 2007 and forward if they want my attention, they need to figure out how to advertise on all 20+ sporting sites I visit and spend equal amount of time on during a week. So this begs the question – How does a Nike or Adidas effectively get me to maximize my viewership of their ads while also maximizing their ad performance?
The answer is simple – Vertical Ad Networks. Vertical Ad Networks provide the most optimal solution for Advertisers in today’s Internet to reach the masses of targeted and relevant audiences they need to reach. Using the example above, besides continuing to advertise on ESPN.com, Nike or Adidas can work with a traditional Ad Network and likely get the largest number of eyeballs on their ads. However, what percent of these eyeballs will actually be relevant or convert for their products across a traditional Ad Network? It’s either low or unknown. Will placing an Ad for Nike apparel on a site dedicated for babies or Harley enthusiasts optimize their ad spend? Absolutely not. With a Vertical Ad Network, Nike or Adidas have the ability to access highly relevant sporting audiences across long-tail sites. In addition to advertising on ESPN.com, Nike and Adidas can now target sporting Ad Networks like Yardbarker or Sports Syndicator that are large communities of sporting sites and continue to get the biggest bang for their advertising spend.
So, while the scope of the Internet is anything buy simple, thanks to technology and innovation, life for Advertisers on the internet can still continue to be good, simple and lucrative.
Posted on December 18, 2007 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)