Report Inappropriate Comments

Caveats: I run an independently owned, locally focused news site. My take on advertising may not be suitable for your business model (i.e., YMMV). Also, part of my model is to eschew non-local advertising (no chains, no networks, no remnant ads). But IMHO some of the advice in this column is deadly.

1) Selling CPM to most local SMBO is a non-starter and limits your potential. The typical SMBO doesn't really understand CPM-based pricing.

2) Limited inventory really means an artificial limit on inventory. Limited inventory works in broadcast because inventory really is limited. Advertisers get that. There is no limit on inventory on the web (with some exceptions -- my site has a limited number of premium positions for which we get a premium price, but we also have unlimited inventory available. What limited inventory really does is limit your business's growth potential. We have 84 contracted advertisers, with a couple of minor exceptions, every ad impression runs on every page. We've embraced what the web is really about rather than try to shoe-horn old media models into an ecosystem where they really don't fit.

3) Rotation sucks. Advertisers hate it and it limits the success of your ads. If you're not giving every advertiser the benefit of every page view, you're only serving to boost your churn rate. If you want more renewals, give every advertiser every page view, and they will love you. You'll drive more traffic to their sites than your competition, and impressively so. This is key to the idea of by embrace the medium and stop trying to create artificial limited inventory models.

FWIW: I've was the top executive at two different award-winning, revenue-generating, successful online newspaper sites prior to doing what I do now. I'm very familiar with the limited inventory model. I practically helped invent it. Then I realized it was brain dead and not working for advertisers and killing our ability grow a real business, so when I struck out on my own, I went against every "limited inventory" rule I knew. I focused on customers rather than revenue, and the approach has worked very well for me so far.

Currently, I have advertisers literally fighting over space on the site, and I no longer make sales calls. I don't have time. New advertisers call me.

Keep in mind also, if you're running an online-only news site, you're essentially running a disruptive company. You're revenue approach must be differentiated from the competition and designed to take advantage of the weaknesses in their approach. Chances are your competition is running a limited inventory model: Attack it. Teach the market place their your model works better for them (not hard, since it does).

Again, this is what's working for me and YMMV, but I'd think twice about some of the advise in this column. Make sure your ad model fits your business model (which includes your content model and your brand). Think comprehensively.