Crikey! The Ads!

6 Comments

1. While I write for Crikey occasionally, I don’t know anything about their business model. But to speculate… the two key factors are both about targeting. Better-targeted advertising has a higher CPM (cost per thousand views).

   1. AFAIK, Google AdWords only go on the website. However the vast majority of Crikey’s regular readers would read it via email. The latter would also read more intently than random website visitors.

   2. Crikey’s subscribers include most of the key political, business and media leaders in Australia. Certain advertisers will be happy to spend good money to reach those people. Crikey can target those advertisers more effectively if they do it themselves rather than rely on Google’s automation.

2. Thank you sir, yes point two is a good one. Everyone (but the old PBL/Ch 9) checks to see if they are being spoken about. 🙂

   Someone emailed me privtely that rates are higher for emailed newsletters and Crikey is able to count how many e-newsletters(paid for) are forwarded on (naughty) – not sure how, by counting hits back to the server to collect say html/images??

   It’s funny but I try to present a least a few of the 12 or so different models for monetising social media sites. Advertising is the one I understand/speak on the least *laughs* probably because I figure a third of the audience live and breathe banner ads.

   Not you dear boy, not you. 😛

3. Laurel, yes, Crikey do track each individual email they send to subscribers. They even have a tracker attached to every hyperlink so they can track, individually and specifically, who clicks on which item they link to.

   I don’t know which specific technique they use because my email system removes the trackers and marks the email as “{Disarmed}”.

   In the context of advertising, though, another “problem” with Google AdWords is that you only get paid for a click-through. Sometimes you’re happy just with a view. The Digerati seem to forget that not all business is transacted online. For example, advertiser Quarterly Essay would be just as happy if people bought the latest issue from a newsagent as if they subscribed online.

4. “In the context of advertising, though, another “problem” with Google AdWords is that you only get paid for a click-through.” I’m glad you put that in quotes. 😛

   The “problem” with Crikey is that they are delivering daily thrills to an older technologically-conservative bunch. Media, politicians and advertising execs who still notice and are reachable by banner ads. Traditional media advertising to traditional business about traditional media? Heh. BTW I subscribed for a while, so there are exceptions.

   The challenge is that just because you have an old car that still runs, and services a bunch of seniors, doesn’t mean it has longevity. Upcoming generations are not reachable by advertising and have their eyeballs on obscure blogs and communities for their news and interests. This Generation doesn’t understand why people would value views instead of clickthrus – brand recall is 5x higher with interactivity. And, as interactivity pretty well still sucks, that can only increase with improvement. 60% of Facebook users visit everyday… I bet they remember more of what they see than people skimming a Crikey email everyday. Or maybe not. The Crikey Army (demographics) are the one lucky generation that saw both the beginning and demise of TV. Heh. Joking. I think.

5. “The Crikey Army (demographics) are the one lucky generation that saw both the beginning and demise of TV. Heh. Joking. I think.”

   I actually think you’re spot on here, Laurel. We’re in a transition period. The advertising / media / political types will finally “get it” not when individuals learn — because as people age they tend to become more set in their ways — but because the individuals who don’t get it will eventually retire or die to replaced by the New Generation.

   Same at the organisational level. Just as there would’ve been a few little hardware stores with a horse-drawn delivery cart well into the 1950s.

   (In Sydney, one stationer still uses a horse-drawn cart to delivery in the CBD — but that’s more as a nostalgic promotional activity than a genuine attempt at efficiency. It’ll probably cease when the horse or the drover dies — whichever occurs first.)

   How many more metaphors can we stir into the mix?

6. Horse and cart was around for what? centuries?

   TV’s been around some 40 years? It’s still “new media” 😛 Annoying when people go on about “destroying a traditional, incumbent TV industry” when it’s still a newborn. Yelling and crying and dirty nappies and all. 😀

   I remember getting our first b&w tube tv (we were late getting one) – a mouse lived in the back of it cos it was warm. I can’t quite remember what we did before we got a TV. But I’m sure ppl in their 40s and older would.

   Probably the upcoming generation (who won’t remember a world without Apple Macs and connectivity) will be talking about incumbent Internet in oh, a year or two. 🙂

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