Automotive Advertising
May 28, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Last week I was going through some Comscore information about sites within our network and was surprised to see a large amount of automotive indexes associated with our food sites. There a number of reasons why we see these automotive indexes appearing, particularly because the main grocery buyer actually drives to grocery store.
However, to explain these better, I thought I’d reach out to Luke Manion who runs the automotive ad network AdTorque for his thoughts and comment on why the Gourmet Ads Network reports high indexes for automotive advertising. ”It has long been a myth in the automotive industry that men make the majority of purchasing decisions. Recently Business Week said that the women’s decision-making authority has grown in part because more households are headed by women — 27% at last count, a fourfold increase since 1950. Their buying power has grown, too. In the past three decades, men’s median income has barely budged — up just 0.6% — while women’s has soared 63%. Automotive advertisers are desperately wanting to tap this valuable female market which makes GourmetAds such an attractive proposition.”
Therefore, any automotive products aimed at women will find our food vertical an ideal platform to talk with potential female buyers, however these areas make particular sense;
- New Cars (Small, Luxury, Mid Sized, Van and SUV)
- Navigational products ( GPS )
- Service ( tyres, tune up )
- Roadside Assistance
So going back to the Comscore indexes, here are some of the automotive indexes which I found of interest, particularly to automotive advertisers;
- 200 Index for audience very likely to purchase a new or used vehicle within the next 6 months
- 803 Index for buying a car with lease online in the last 6 months
- 358 Index for buying auto parts and supplies online in the last 6 months
- 287 Index for buying automotive loan online in the past 6 months
- 643 Index for having bought a used car online within the last 6 months
- 1950 Index for plan to buy in the next 6 months a Large luxury vehicle
- 247 Index for plan to buy in the next 6 months a Midsize sedan/coupe
- 212 Index for plan to buy in the next 6 months a Full-size sports utility (SUV)
- 201 Index for plan to buy in the next 6 months a Full-size van
So if you’re in the automotive industry and looking to reach into new channel to drive sales, then request a proposal from Gourmet Ads. We’ll help develop a digital media plan that will deliver your advertising directly to relevant consumers.
Google Analytics
May 23, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
This may seem obvious, but before you look to start looking at increasing the traffic to your site, it’s important to look at how you measure your traffic right now.
If you don’t have a benchmark to start with, then how can you measure the increase? So what statistics or web analytics program are you using to measure your traffic? If you don’t have one, then now is the perfect time to get a solution in place.
You’ll learn about the pages that drive the majority your traffic, what websites refer traffic to yours and what search engines and keyword terms people arrive on. Google Analytics has great intelligence about your audience, from where they live, how long they spend on your site, how many pages they look at and where they arrive and exit your site.
After you register with Google Analytics, all you need to do is place a small bit of code in the footer of your site, then it usually takes about 24 hours for Google to start collecting the data.
To get started, visit https://www.google.com/analytics
WordPress Owners there is a great simple plug-in called Ultimate Google Analytics that not only puts the code in the right place it goes one step further tracking links that people click on to other sites. Very handy.
Advertising your Twitter Page
May 22, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Twitter is starting to gain a great deal of attention in main stream media in recent times and it reminds me of when Facebook initially started to gain a wider audience base about 2 years ago. At that time it was the early adopters in your network of friends that started to tip their toe in, with many still skeptical of the platform or concerned about privacy. I am seeing that same network of friends
starting to move to Twitter.
I think one of the reasons why we’ve seen a recent growth in Twitter is the use by both celebrities and companies who have already embraced the platform and having an actual two way discussion with fans or uses of their products. Something that till now has been hard for brands to do. Over at my personal site, I’ve created a list of Celebrity Chefs on Twitter.
So how does your brand engage with consumers on Twitter and gain an audience of a few hundred thousand followers overnight?
Gourmet Ads has been on Twitter for a while now (follow us @gourmetads), and we use the platform to talk with advertising agencies, marketing managers, publishers and anyone associated with our business around the globe. We publish regular content into Twitter each day as well as have conversations with clients and publishers regularly. So we have something that our audience actually wants to engage and actively discuss or even just read and observe.
Apart from people simply adding us via Twitter, we’ve grown our audience base through running targeted ads through the Gourmet Ads network. This is something that you can do its very cost effective compared to the some of the wild over thought strategies that you read or hear about. There is no point randomly adding people who are not relevant to your brand. If you are food brand and your product is only in New York State, Gourmet Ads can run a campaign that is targeted towards people that live in New York State who are more likely to engage with your brand than not. If you are winery in Napa Valley with national distribution, then it makes sense to just run your campaign in America.
Your campaign to drive people to your food or wine Twitter page could be done two ways. You could either drive them simply to your page on Twitter. However I believe that’s a very immature way of doing it because you assume that everyone who clicks on the ad will know;
a) what twitter is
b) what they have to do.
I would recommend sending the users to a page on your website and educate them about Twitter. This page could be about why your brand has decided to embrace Twitter and why they can benefit from following your brand online. I saw a boutique beer brand in Australia run a weekly competition only open to people following their brand on Twitter. Very clever.
If you’d like to look at increasing your reach using Twitter, then Gourmet Ads can help build your audience. Request a Proposal from us and we’ll develop a Digital Media Plan that targets your audience and helps drive engagement and conversation with your consumers.
Helping our Publishers Grow
May 21, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
I wanted to take a moment and talk about an initiative called the Gourmet Ads Traffic Booster program that we’re starting on the 1st of June for our network of publishers.
We’ve developed a month long program to help publishers increase the traffic to their recipe site, food blog or wine review site. Each day during June, we’ll send out an email with a simple task that publishers can do to help build their traffic. Some days we’ll be search focused; others will be focused on telling people about your site and others we’ll offer up ideas on using social media marketing to drive traffic.
We’re hoping that towards the end of the program we’ll be able to boost long term traffic in the Gourmet Ads network for advertisers. Best of all the strategies we’re helping our publishers with, will mean that we deliver more relevant audiences for you to engage with in the future.
If you’re a publisher and want to learn more visit the Gourmet Ads Traffic Booster page.
What is a mid-tail publisher site?
May 20, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
A while ago we talked about Mid Tail Advertising and we specifically talked about the audience makeup and why it is important to reach these highly engaged audiences. The Mid Tail Advertising blog has stayed in the top ten blogs since we published it.
However the team at Gourmet Ads are still frequently asked by advertisers and advertising agencies, what is a mid-tail publisher site? With that in mind I thought we’d discuss that in detail and delve a little deeper and talk about what we look for when searching for sites to join the network.
So what’s a Mid-tail publisher ? It’s a premium niche site which produces great content. So in the food space think of food blogs, food video sites, niche recipe websites and even web 2.0 applications like a recipe application for your iPhone. Some of the food sites in Gourmet Ads network are just about a particular topic like baking or cuisine like Mexican. They have dedicated and active audiences which participate in the conversation.
Many sites in the Mid-tail that Gourmet Ads represent have a cult like following with audiences visiting regularly throughout the month to read new content or participate. Some even attract users multiple times per day and bring them back by using site features such as RSS to deliver new content throughout the day.
So what does Gourmet Ads look for in Mid-tail publisher? Well from our perspective, a mid-tail publisher site is assessed from 4 separate directions, these being; Branding, Audience, Traffic and Content.
Branding
Does the website have a brand? Is it recognizable? Is there are personality behind the brand? Does it ad value to the entire Gourmet Ads network? Well it continue to grow?
Audience
It’s important that the sites which are part of network have a consistent audience to the rest of our network. We typically reach Women aged 27 -55 years old and are considered the main household grocery buyer. Does this audience fit our overall audience makeup?
Traffic
Using a variety of tools we look at metrics from Google PageRank to Alexa, through to Quantcast and even the website itself to identify possible traffic volumes. We look for sites that are doing between page views between 50k to 10 million pages per month. However if the website or blog is quality they need to be doing just 5k in pages a month.
Content
Is the site producing quality content? Is it original and unique? Would our clients like to advertise beside the content? Other things we look for is Email Newsletter as well as a strong RSS audience (ie Feed Burner Metrics).
The advantages of advertising on a Mid-tail publisher site:
- Highly engaged audiences
- Sites are frequently visited
- Many sites have a cult like following
- Inexpensive CPM rates compared to large portals
- Audiences range from 50k to 10 million pages per month
So if you looking at running an advertising campaign and would like to include Mid-tail sites in the media plan, contact Gourmet Ads and we’ll develop a customised digital media plan for your consideration. Start by downloading the Gourmet Ads Media Kit or Request a Proposal from us.
Food is Recession Proof
May 19, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
The New York Times recently ran an article entitled Food Brands Compete to Stretch a Dollar which talked about how food brands are advertising their products during the recession to maintain market share. If you’re in the food or advertising business the article is a must read.
The article discusses how some more expensive brands are being left on the shelf, while cheaper private labels and store brands sales soar. To combat the trend of private label sales increasing, large food companies are vamping up their advertising spend to ensure that sales continue and they maintain market share. “shoppers eager to save money are trading down from full-price, brand-name fare to cheaper private labels and store brands. That means advertisers concerned about losing market share must make persuasive arguments about the value propositions of their wares”. Which in other words means things like 20% extra value, $2 per serve and snacks for $1 as examples of the messaging. They are designed to grab the attention of the main grocery buyer.
The article also mentions the decline of consumers’ dining out and discusses how companies such as Kraft and Nestlé, hope to capitalize on the opportunity by heavily marketing the perceived value of packaged foods. Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh meats is also doing this by proclaiming in their marketing how their meats taste “deli fresh. But without the deli counter price.” Other examples from Kraft include advertising campaigns for boxed dinners like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Velveeta Shells and Cheese, carrying the theme “Save. Share. Smile”; Kool-Aid, carrying the theme “More smiles per gallon”; and Kraft Singles cheese slices describes how a Singles cheeseburger can be made for less than a dollar.
Gourmet Ads has been running campaigns with creative like those discussed above; however we’ve seen a bigger trend in the use of coupons. I think 30% of the campaigns running today on our advertising network have some sort of coupon based creative in the messaging.
While many other industries slash advertising budgets, I think over the next 6 to 12 months we’ll see a great percentage of food companies heavily investing during this recession. Kellogg’s has always been a company which has heavily advertised during recessions and generally comes out of periods of decline with greater market share. Some of the food companies we’ve spoken to have increased their spend by up to 50% more then compared to last year.
If you’re looking at running a campaign aimed at reaching the main household grocery buyer and influencing them, then download a copy of our media kit or request a proposal for a digital media plan from us.
Widgets for Branding
May 16, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
We’ve previously talked about Recipe Widgets which are useful for providing brand awareness on how to use ingredients in recipes. But these dynamic rich media units can provide significant branding opportunities for companies if executed correctly.
I’ve never really actually liked the term “widget”, as some early widgets were either desktop based or multiplatform, think Yahoo widgets which were installed on your machine. Brands had no control over how they were executed, installed or even metrics on how many people used them or engaged with them. How many times a week it was used, searched terms etc.
When we at Gourmet Ads refer to widgets, we mean a simple rich media units which are delivered using our advertising network. They are typically 300 x 250 island ad units. We traffic them to sites within our network and as such there isn’t any surprises and we can track engagements, displays, click throughs etc just like a regular ad unit.
So what can be delivered via a widget? Pretty much anything these days, from content including video, through to competitions, newsletter subscriptions, even CRM strategies can be delivered.. it may sound a little cliché but the ideas are endless with widgets.
Given the kind of content which can be delivered, the opportunities for brand awareness are significant. Even if users don’t engage with the widget, you gain brand recognition. Going one step further, as widgets are displayed and used, we can drop a cookie on the users machine tracking users which use your widget. We can then continue to target these consumers, either with the widget again or even a newsletter subscription form or any other relevant messaging.
Gourmet Ads is flexible in our pricing for recipe widgets as we believe that widgets are a long term branding strategy. Apart from production costs, we can either price them on a CPM basis or fixed quarterly, 6 months or even annually. What ever works for your budget.
If you’re interested in exploring how a recipe widget or anyother type of widget could play a role in your digital advertising strategy, please contact us for more information, or download a media kit.
Pitchmen on Discovery
May 13, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
If you’ve ever watched a infomercial in the USA, then you’ve definitely heard the phrase “Hi I’m Billy Mays for”…whatever product he is selling. Most know him from talking and pitching the oxiClean products. There is no doubt that Billy Mays is considered the most successful direct-response salesman in TV history and together with Anthony Sullivan of Swivel Sweeper fame they host the new show Pitchmen on Discovery Channel.
The show Pitchmen is about how Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan find products to sell on TV, how they make the infomercial and then how it performs. I am surprised at two things from the show. Firstly how simple and inexpensive their process is from start to finish. They talk on the show about how they book TV media and it had me thinking why doesn’t Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan use the internet to sell their products as well..
Taking a hypothetical view, if Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan came to Gourmet Ads with a product what could we put together for them? First off, undertaking an online campaign offers a far more cost effective way of reaching target audiences. As we reach a female demographic aged 27-55, I would only be focus on advertising products aimed at this demographic.
So if Gourmet Ads were doing a proposal to Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan we would offer the following advertising over a month to drive sales of the products.
Campaign Name : Make an Impact and Sales
For the period of a month, we would create an over the page campaign playing the infomercial video as soon as a consumer hits a website within our network. The creative would load over the top of the website and automatically play the video. Consumers would see it once per day or once every two days. – learn about Over the Page here
To support this, we would then take the infomercials and create them into a Medium rectangle sized ad unit (300 x 250). We would traffic these ads across our entire network of sites and have them play on load. Rich media campaigns like these create an impact and drive engagement.
Finally, priced at less than the rich media prices we would traffic Leaderboard, skyscrapers of the ads across the network to support the video activity. These could be expandable ad units to continue the impactful strategy.
You don’t have to be the Pitchmen Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan to run this sort of advertising campaigns with Gourmet Ads. We can develop a customised advertising campaign like this for every advertiser, designed to get results. If you’d like to learn more, download the Gourmet Ads Media Kit or contact us and Request a Proposal.
Recipe Widgets
May 12, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
When brand name ingredients are used in a recipe, the chance of consumers purchasing the product either online or offline is considerably high. I believe this is for two reasons. Firstly because the consumer now understands how the product can be used. Secondly, because they fear they if they don’t follow the recipe, it won’t work out properly.
So with this in mind, the challenge for food brands is to develop strategies on how they can deliver recipes direct to consumers, each and everyday, whilst being consistent. Sure you can create a recipe database on your brand’s website, and drive traffic back to particular recipes, but this can be hit and miss.
For maximum consumer penetration, recipes have to be in front of consumers where they are engaged and researching recipes and developing their shopping grocery list. So one such strategy is to develop a recipe widget or a rich media unit which uses your brand and product in every recipe. The recipe widget could deliver all the recipes from the website in a 300×250 ad unit size. Consumers could search and even deliver their shopping list all from the recipe widget. They could even bookmark recipes they like or even rate them. With recent changes to flash, we can also stream video from the widget, the ideas are endless.
The recipe widget can be delivered via our existing ad network seamlessly offering maximum penetration on our premium websites and blogs. We can track engagements, displays, click throughs etc just like a regular ad unit.
Gourmet Ads is flexible in our pricing for recipe widgets as we believe that widgets are a long term branding strategy. Apart from production costs, we can either price them on a CPM basis or fixed quarterly, 6 months or even annually. What ever works for your budget.
If you’re interested in exploring how a recipe widget could play a role in your digital advertising strategy, please contact us for more information, or download a media kit.
Moms Sites Wanted
May 11, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
As the Gourmet Ads network begins to mature we’re keen to delve deeper into verticals which advertisers are interested in reaching. One of these areas is our Moms vertical.
Moms play a critical role in what families eat and nearly every major food company wants to reach moms because typically they are the main grocery buyer in households. They are usually the sole decision maker when it comes to actually what products they will buy. They also have control over the healthy lifestyle of the family.
With this in mind, we’re seeking more mom related sites to join the network, particularly those that have a food focus of sorts. It could be a blog about what food goes into lunch boxes or what is cooked for dinner each night. We find sites like these attract an audience of moms, which is what advertisers are seeking from us.
If you’ve got a blog or website which is highly focused on mom and food related topics or has a strong audience of moms we’d like you to apply to join the Gourmet Ads network.
