Most Popular for 2009
December 31, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
As we roll onto 2010 or “Twenty Ten” as many are calling it, I though it might be good to take a quick look back to some of the most popular blogs we wrote this year. Just like 2009, during 2010 we’ll try to write as many blogs as we can helping to educate advertisers, media buyers and owners on how to advertise online and reach your target audience.
So here we go…..
- 2010 Advertising Trends
- Targeting Grocery Buyers
- Online Drives CPG Sales
- Reaching Holiday Shoppers
- Grocery Store Loyalty Programs
- Display Ads Trigger Search
- Reaching Working Moms
- Creative Advertising
- More Cooking at Home
- Increasing Click Through Rates
- Interstitial Advertising
Maybe you had a favourite blog ?
User Generated Recipes
December 30, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Some advertisers don’t like to run their advertising on websites which feature user generated content. This is because their advertising could appear next to something inappropriate. I totally understand why some companies take that stance. However, User Generated Recipe sites are different to regular user generated content and shouldn’t be included classified the same.
For those that don’t know, user generated recipe websites are where the community of thousands of recipe authors contribute to the site instead of just a few authors. Nearly every user generated recipe sites have a recipe structure to follow and they require an image for every recipe. Because the community is so varied with cultures and cooking experience, the website ends up featuring a vast amount of unique content that cant be found else where. Over time recipe authors who create great recipes that people enjoy attract a cult following. Additionally because there isn’t any editorial agenda’s at play the site grows organically and features all types of great recipes.
Gourmet Ads now represents a number of User Generated Recipe sites. So why should you be running advertising on a User Generated Recipe site?
- Large dedicated audiences
- High page impressions per user
- Continually growing with new recipes all the time
- Strong sense of community between readers and recipe authors
- Conversation between recipe authors
- Readers can rate recipes
So what advertisers can benefit from advertising on User Generated Recipe sites? Well any advertiser that wants to reach the main household grocery buyer. The person who’s looking at recipes online is also more than likely to be the same person who purchases the groceries for the household. Across the globe a number of companies including the multi national food company Unilever have developed their own user generated recipe sites.
For your next advertising campaign if you’d like to include sites featuring user generated content, then Gourmet Ads can develop a bespoke campaign for your consideration. Start by downloading our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
UK Foods Sites Wanted
December 29, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
With a strong sales team now on ground in London and an upcoming UK Roadshow for advertising agencies towards the end of January, we are currently seeking to expand the number of UK recipe sites and food blogs in the Gourmet Ads network.
So what are we looking for?
Ideally you’ll be producing your own food content on a regular basis and have a great base of traffic, but most importantly you’ll be based in the UK. This is important as some advertisers only want to advertise on UK based sites. Join the Gourmet Ads network now.
We’ll totally manage your advertising inventory and provide monthly revenue. Other key features and benefits of Gourmet Ads for publishers include;
- Non-exclusive relationship
- Majority of advertisers are companies in the food, wine, beer, travel and lifestyle space.
- CPM based advertising campaigns
- Sponsorship advertising campaigns
- Total control over campaigns – ability to approve or reject advertising
- Advertising Portal to manage your advertising inventory
- Control over advertisement pricing (set minimums and auto rejects)
- Ability to mange your own unsold inventory (or run your own house ads)
- Flexibility and scalability – we can manage some or all of your inventory
- Strong focus on advertising campaigns in USA, Australia, UK and Canada
- Monetize your content globally – sales teams in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and Sydney
You may have your own internal sales teams or be part of another ad network. That’s fine with us, because we offer a non-exclusive relationship which means you can use the Gourmet Ads network as back fill. We ask that if you do work with another ad network that you offer all networks an equal allocation.
Finally, for all publishers we offer a free program to help increase your traffic, called the Gourmet Ads Traffic Booster Program.
So if you have a recipe site or food blog that you’d like to monetize, Join the Gourmet Ads network now.
Merry Christmas
December 24, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
After another successful year at Gourmet Ads, we’d like to extend our thanks to our clients, publishers and suppliers that made it happen.
A special thanks to the platform, account management, marketing and media teams at Adify in San Bruno, New York, London, Sydney and cant forget Kevin in Singapore. Without them we wouldn’t have a great product.
Looking forward into 2010, we’ve already got a lot of campaigns booked for Q1 and with the expansion into London in January we are expecting big things next year.
Finally, I’d like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
January Advertising Packages
December 23, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Our January packages feature extremely competitive CPM rates and for the first time we’re including both Intersitial Advertising and Floating Ads ideal for any food company or CPG advertiser want to reach the main household grocery buyer.
Priced this month at US$15k and US$35k all packages feature high profile placements together with regular display units. We’d be happy to further customize each of the packages depending on your campaign targets and desired reach.
Additionally because most people will be out of office, we are happy to extend these campaigns for 30 days from the start date opposed to just 30 days. So if you book your campaign to start on the 12th of January, it will go through to the 12th February. Great value especially in the lead up to the Super Bowl in February. Heck, we can offer these packages right throughout Q1 2010.
If you’d like a copy of our January packages simply, Contact Us and mention “January Advertising Packages” in the message field and we’ll email them together with our Media Kit. Providing you have advertising creative ready to go. The team at Gourmet Ads can turn around a campaign in less than 24 hours.
Q1 Media Planning
December 22, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Q1 is literally only days away and you’ve probably already started your digital media planning for Q1 already. But for those that haven’t started media planning what should be your strategy for the first quarter of 2010?
Maybe take a moment and read our 2010 Advertising Trends.
For grocery / supermarket and CPG companies the largest event to allocate advertising budgets towards in Q1 is the Super Bowl the first week of February. Campaigns we’ve already got booked start around the 10th of January and conclude on the 10th of February focusing on driving consumer intent in the lead up to the Super Bowl – see blog on Super Bowl Advertising. Most advertisers are including a combination of regular display units (728 x90, 300 x250 and 160 x 600 ) and high visibility ad units such as interstitials and floating ads to make an impact. Don’t forget the earlier you start media planning the better CPM rates that can be negotiated.
Surprisingly we’ve already seen a number of companies who’ve held off advertising during 2009, now planning campaigns in early Q1 2010. Some have seen their market share reduce during 2009 and their strategy is gain back market share with roadblock advertising and high impact advertising units. So the strategy is to get their message in front of grocery buyers and household decision makers to drive sales growth.
So no matter what your media planning strategy you’re undertaking for 2010, the team at Gourmet Ads can develop a bespoke media plan for your consideration. Start by downloading our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from us.
December Packages
December 8, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
If you’ve left your Christmas Advertising campaign to the last moment or if you’ve had incremental budgets become available, then Gourmet Ads has two online advertising packages available.
Priced at both US$10k and US$20k, both packages feature extremely competitive CPM rates for December and we can further customize each of the packages depending on your campaign targets. If you’re advertising budgets are much higher, we can certainly develop a bespoke media plan package which provides added value.
Providing you have advertising creative ready to go. The team at Gourmet Ads can turn around a campaign in less than 24 hours.
If you’d like a copy of our packages simply, Contact Us and mention “December Packages” in the message field and we’ll email you our packages info and Media Kit for your information.
From Magazine to Online
December 5, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Earlier this year, I visited Gary Vaynerchuk host of Wine Library TV in New Jersey and we recorded a video about Australian Wines – see our video here. Since then I regularly watch his videos and today at www.garyvaynerchuk.com (his other video site) I stumbled upon a video where Gary is discussing the recent demise of Gourmet Magazine.
Gary asks the question why companies are advertising on magazines when the audience has not transitioned to online. He asks where they are going to advertise now ? This video by Gary is extremely relevant to our audience which why I felt it was important to share with you.
Here at Gourmet Ads we can not only provide reach into food blogs and online food communities but most importantly on recipe websites where the household grocery buyer spends time online.
If you previously had budget for magazine spending but don’t know where to put it, contact us and we’ll develop a media plan which will give you a far better return on investment than print.
Grocery Advertising
December 2, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Grocery Advertising online is about reaching the main household grocery buyer ( or Mr Household Grocery Buyer) when they are in the decision making phase. Running adverting for your grocery store next to recipes where the main household grocery buyer is researching food ideas and making critical family meal planning is the key for any grocery advertising campaign.
In the past, grocery stores used newspapers, television, radio and magazines to advertise their grocery stores and weekly specials. The previous focus was on mass branding, now it’s much more about spending advertising budgets more efficiently in order to reach the right person in the household, opposed to everyone in the household which is what you get with mass brand advertising.
From our perspective more and more Grocery Stores are shifting their grocery advertising budgets to online networks such as Gourmet Ads. This shift in moving grocery advertising budgets to online has been fuelled by a combination of key reasons, such as;
- Cost efficiencies offered by online
- Ability to target on a geo targeting basis from national right down to Zip Code
- Time and Day Part targeting – advertise throughout the day and evening
- Rich media opportunities that online presents
So what kind of advertising are grocery stores undertaking? Well it varies greatly from grocery brand to grocery brand. Large national grocery brands usually have their own grocery advertising budgets, plus Co-op advertising budgets which means that can run wide reaching and impactful campaigns online. However smaller, more regional grocery brands will tend to rely heavily on geo targeting to only reach local customers. Some of the grocery advertising we’re running includes;
- Brand advertising campaigns
- Grocery Coupon based campaigns
- Grocery Loyalty Card campaigns
- Weekly Specials Campaigns
- Pre Roll Video Campaigns
So if you’re grocery store isn’t running grocery advertising online, now is the time to start with more and more consumers online it makes sense to allocate a proposition of your budget to online. By running advertising with Gourmet Ads you’re reaching a network dedicated to reaching the household grocery buyer. That’s all we do. Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from us.
Increasing Click Through Rates
December 1, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads focuses on providing advertisers the best platform for their advertising campaign. We do this by only editorially selecting sites we feel will perform. But ultimately for brand advertisers they gauge success by the engagement rate of the campaign, while direct response advertisers gauge success on the click through rate or CTR of the campaign.
So from an advertiser perspective what can be done to increase the click through rate on campaigns? What do you have to do for your campaign to out perform? Well there are a number of tasks that can be undertake to significantly increase your click-through-rate.
Advertising Creative
Often disregarded by advertisers if you’re creative isn’t professionally designed with clear call to actions and messaging its hard to simply expect people to click on your ads. Check out a recent blog we wrote about Creative Advertising which goes through some of the necessary things to think about when designing your creative.
Media Buying in Relevant Content / Channels
Well if you’re reading this you’re obviously aware that Gourmet Ads is a food and wine advertising network. As such campaigns with a food or wine focus or targeted at audiences of food and wine sites perform exceptionally well. Travel, Finance and Automotive all perform very well on the Gourmet Ads network (see Automotive Advertising). So the key here is that you should book media for your campaign on networks where the content is related to the product you’re advertising.
Frequency Capping
You’ve probably seen on media plans things like 1/48 or 5/24 well these are indicators for media planners on how many impressions to display per day per user. 1/48 meant the user will see 1 impression every 2 two days, while 5/24 means 5 impressions per day. 1/48 is commonly used for trafficking an interstitial or over the page creative, while 5/24 is for regular display. Frequency Capping helps increase your click thought rate because a user isn’t bombarded by your ads.
Multiple Creative
Say you have 5/24 frequency capping on your campaign, then to increase the click through rate one strategy could be to have 5 different ads within your media campaign. That way users are not seeing the same ad but fresh ads during their site visit. This increases the chance of them clicking on the ads and driving up the click through rate for the campaign.
Use a Price and Call to Action in Your Ads
This may seem obvious, but if you don’t ask users to do something then they probably won’t do it. So if you want people to click on ad, then you’d be best to have a strong call to action in the messaging asking them to do so. Some advertising creative has fixed part of the advert for messaging like “Click for more info” with the aim of increasing the click through rate.
Use Geo Targeting
There’s no point advertising your product or service to a country or state that your advertising isn’t relevant to. So Gourmet Ads insists on placing some sort of geo targeting restrictions on campaigns to ensure that users clicking on your ad are likely to be customers. By using geo targeting the click through rate will also be higher because the messaging is relevant, thus increasing the amount of clicks for your campaign.
Use time Day Part Targeting
Most campaigns run on Gourmet Ads are either food or wine campaigns, and as such they are aimed at times and days of the week when it’s appropriate to target consumers. For example when advertising food products between 9am to 10pm each day, they have a higher click through rate compared to if they were trafficked over a 24 hour period. Conversely wine products advertised Wednesday to Sunday have a higher click through rate compared to running them 7 days a week.
Roadblock Advertising
Ideally used for key days like Black Friday or Memorial Day, Roadblock advertising can increase the click through rate because every single impression for that day is for your campaign. When running your advertising campaign across a network such as Gourmet Ads, roadblock advertising provides a wide reaching media buy with similar metrics to those of TV media buy.
Campaign Optimization
One of the ways we as network operators can help increase your click through rate for the campaign is to run optimization on the campaign. We can filter out all the ad units which are not performing at the desired click though rate and removing them from the buy instantly.
If you’d like to learn more about the opportunities on the Gourmet Ads network, download our media kit or request a proposal for your next campaign.
