Fark’s Drew Curtis is interviewed by the O’Reilly team and has some good insights on how to succeed with internet advertising.
It’s not the model. It’s the pricing. That sounds obvious, but it all comes down to effective sales methods. Digital salespeople are slowly building a narrative that not all ad impressions are equal, and those that are wrapped around compelling content are more valuable than, say, impressions that rip by when you poke someone on Facebook.
…
it’s not really any one metric. It’s more about what ratio of uniques to visits to page views is the best. Ideally, you want a large number of uniques who visit on a regular basis and consume 3-5 page views per visit.
And a few ideas on improving sales:
- Change the sales narrative — Not all impressions are created equal. Not all audiences have the same value.
- Reduce industry-wide available inventory
- Augment with subscription content of some kind — Any kind.
- If you have a community, do an annual event.
- If you have a content niche, sell product on it.
- Cut overhead dramatically — Legacy media was used to having individual regional monopolies with 40-percent profit margins
There is a lot more in the article.