Advertising Free Shipping
February 26, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
The other day I was reading an old article in the New York Times about how offering Free Shipping on your ecommerce site can significantly increase sales. The article discusses and shares insight into the strategies of the some of the most popular online stores and how they price their shipping and how it can greatly impact sales. Read the article here – Nothing Says ‘Buy’ Like ‘Free Shipping’ .
The Free Shipping Article had me thinking about how a company which was going to offer free shipping for a period of time and how they would promote the offer. Naturally I think most only stores undertaking a free shipping promotion would do two things. First they would put some sort of promotional messaging on their sites advising prospective customers that they might qualify for free shipping on their first order. Secondly, an ecommerce store offering free shipping would reach out to their existing customer with an EDM of sorts advising that for their next order the shipping is free. Another idea is advertising free shipping, but I’ll get back to that in a moment.
What I think most online stores forget is that free shipping could be a great lead generation strategy to build sales. A few years ago I was involved in an online store start up as a consultant. Well before the successful bricks and mortar company started building their new start up website, they undertook a market research study to identify customer ideals, which they assumed were very different from their existing bring and mortar customers.
The number one thing that came from the market research was that customers online were more likely to make a purchase on their new site if the shipping was free, opposed to paying a premium for the delivery. So the company went into the new ecommerce site with the marketing tactic that customers would never pay for shipping. They simply built the shipping into the price point. The result; sales exploded for them and they’ve never looked back. The site has turned out to be a multimillion dollar online business and I believe that it’s because of their foundation that customers will never pay for shipping.
Ok, so you’ve decided to run a free shipping promotion. So apart from reaching out to customers on your site or your existing customer base, you should consider running an advertising campaign to market your free shipping campaign. By advertising free shipping you’re removing one of the hurdles that many online stores face and reaching out to gaining new customers. It could be the best lead generation campaign you’ve ever run.
Apart from simply running your free shipping advertising across our entire network of grocery buyers, we can help develop your advertising creative. It’s important for the creative to indicate that you’re offering free shipping. Don’t put the key message in a small font, make it stand out in bold and gain attention.
For more information about running your free shipping advertising with Gourmet Ads, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
March Advertising Packages
February 25, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
For advertising agencies and companies who’ve had incremental budgets become available for March, the last month of Q1, check out Gourmet Ads March advertising packages.
Our March advertising packages feature extremely competitive CPM rates and once again we’ve included high visibility ad units including Intersitial Advertising and Floating Ads which are ideal for any food company or CPG advertiser who wants 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. As always we’d be happy to further customize each of the packages depending on your campaign targets and desired reach.
Additionally 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 March, it will go through to the 12th April.
If you’d like to check out our March Advertising Packages, simply go to the Contact Us page and mention “March 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.
UK Recipe Sites Wanted
February 24, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads is currently seeking UK recipe sites and UK food blogs to join our UK network.
So what are we looking for?
Ideally you’ll be producing your own recipe and 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
- Advertising Reporting Portal
- Ability to run your own house ads
- Flexibility and scalability – we can manage some or all of your inventory
- Strong focus on advertising campaigns in UK, USA 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.
Explaining Comscore
February 24, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads is currently in the process of being included in Comscore and as a publisher in our network you’ve probably received a request from our publishing team to sign a Traffic Assignment Letter (TAL) which is located here. We thought it was important to write a short blog explaining this further and why it’s essential for increasing revenue on your site.
What is Comscore?
Comscore is a NASDAQ listed company which provides web business digital market intelligence on sites and audiences. Comscore is the preferred measurement service for many online companies and provides networks like Gourmet Ads independently audited statistics of our entire audience.
Digital Advertising Agencies
Comscore provides media buyers and media planners software to better understand audiences, quickly and easily. Nearly every advertising agency around the globe uses some sort media planning software from Comscore. So being listed with us provides visibility through to agency staff for your site or blog. Because most sites have low traffic they don’t automatically appear in Comscore, so this is a great opportunity to be listed.
Audience numbers
Having third party audited audience numbers from Comscore is a bit like having Google Analytics across every site in our network. This allows media buyers to understand the reach of the Gourmet Ads Network. This is extremely important for brand advertisers who are interested in reaching as many people as possible for their campaigns.
Understanding the audience data
One of the greatest advantages of using Comscore is that media buyers can dig deeper into audience data ie how many kids in a household, how often they go to the supermarket etc. This once again allows the media buyer to analyze our network in consideration to running a campaign for an advertiser.
So what do you have to do?
All you need to do is fill out the Comscore letter at the link below, sign the form and then you’re done.
http://www.gourmetads.com/publishers/comscore
2011 Media Planning
February 23, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Believe it or not a great deal of digital advertising agencies are already undertaking their 2011 Media Planning for their clients. The RFPs from agencies coming in right now are mostly for companies planning media from July 2010 through to June 2011 activity. This is very different from media planning which we experienced last year with most planning taking place either a couple of days from going live or at a maximum of 8 weeks in advance.
Interestingly most companies have increased their budgets for 2011 Media Planning by approximately 2 to 2 and half times from that in 2009/2010. Many of the companies we deal directly with in the food, wine, tourism and kitchen appliance industries are all looking at online as a cost effective channel to achieve growth in sales.
Already apparent across 2011 media planning that we’ve seen is the shift from the performance based metric of just click through rate (CTR) over to the broader brand based metric of engagement rate. The move to engagement rates suggests that a heavy emphasis will be placed on creative development in 2011, using high visibility units such as video. This is very different from the past where most campaigns booked consisted of only regular display units such as 728×90, 300×250 and 160×600. Its seems that agencies are planning to use creative such as pre roll video, widgets, long term integration, dynamic ads, expandable units, interstitials, background skins and social networking elements all which can be executed through Gourmet Ads.
For companies in the Food and Wine space, Gourmet Ads is a natural fit, but some of the media planning we’ve seen in 2011 is for companies outside of this space. Advertising agencies have recognised the value of our female grocery buying audience which has led to RFPs in the tourism, financial, automotive spaces indicating that many brand advertisers are seeking quality inventory out of their “safe” advertising places that they used in 2009 and Q1 2010.
Gourmet Ads can help you or your advertising agency develop your 12 month plan to target your audience online throughout the year. By booking media in advance (either 6 month or 12 months) allows us to offer significant discounts on CPM rates and bonus impressions increasing your return on investment.
To have Gourmet Ads help with your 2011 media planning, please Request for Proposal from us or to learn more about Gourmet Ads, download a copy of our media kit.
Dynamic Ads
February 19, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · 2 Comments
Imagine being able to control and change the entire content, messaging or call to action of a display campaign in just a few minutes. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that fresh creative as part of a campaign significantly increases click through and engagement rates.
Dynamic ads are generally created in Flash or HTML and instead of the content being written into the files, the content is sourced from a server live or cached. The content could be fed into the ad by a RSS feed or there are some companies specializing in creating and developing dynamic ads.
Developing a creative execution paired together with consumer behaviour in the form of cookies could significantly increase sales. For example Amazon has been using dynamic ads for years, integrating products you’ve looked at into their ad units. Adding in both to behavioural data, geotargeting data could also be applied to the add.
Dynamic Ads sound great but what are some practical uses or examples?
- Supermarkets could publish today’s special together with a product photo
- ecommerce sites could publish today’s product of the day
- Airlines and hotels could publish a hot vacation deal or cheap flight of the day
- Your brands Twitter conversation (as above)
- Sponsors of sports games like Superbowl or Football World Cup could publish the score in real time
- TV stations could publish what’s on tonight’s line up
- News companies could publish the current headlines
- Restaurant chains could advertise todays specials
As you can see the ideas are endless and are really only limited by your imagination. The team at Gourmet Ads can help develop dynamic ad concepts to reality and deliver them to our audience of highly engaged grocery buyers.
For more information about Dynamic Ads or Gourmet Ads, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
Wine & Grocery Buyers
February 17, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads works with a variety of wine companies, but you’d be suprised to know that the majority of the campaigns being run are targeted to the grocery buyer and not the wine coonisueeer. Apart from working with major wine companies and smaller boutique wineries, Gourmet Ads runs a lot of wine campaigns for wine retailers and liqour chains.
There is no doubt that expensive high end wines (here at Gourmet Ads we call them collectors) skews to more of a male demographic however the majority of wine campaigns we run are for wines are under $20 and targeted to the female grocery buyer. Our clients prefer to target the audience which is going to make a wine purchase while doing the groceries. With this mind it’s important to influence the wine buying decision before they go to the grocery store. With Gourmet Ads our advertising positions are next to or close by recipes, allow you to reach the grocery buyer while they are doing their grocery list. Instead of having your target market put down wine on their shopping list, wouldn’t it be better for them to write your wine brand down? That way their looking for your brand instead of just a white or red wine.
Some wine brands are national, others are available in select markets. Using our platform’s industry standard geo targeting capabilities, we can pinpoint your target market only displaying your ads if they live in your target market’s location.
So if youre a wine retailer or winery, what kind if campaigns could you run with Gourmet Ads? Well a while ago we wrote a list of ideas – check our Wine Advertising Ideas.
So of you’re charged with lifting wine sales and increasing brand awareness, then Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team. We’ll help you reach the grocery buyer online and influence their buying descions.
Featured Ad Network – Gourmet Ads
February 16, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
We are quite pleased to have Gourmet Ads as our first featured ad network. Gourmet Ads is a global vertical ad network reaching household Grocery Buyers with offices in North America, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The Gourmet Ads network only represents quality food and wine websites throughout the world, aggregating and managing advertising across these highly relevant websites and blogs.
Below is our interview with Benjamin Christie, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Gourmet Ads.
AdNetworks.NET: Currently, Gourmet Ads serves advertisers in the Food vertical who are trying to target consumers in USA, UK, Canada and Australia. Any other key market segments I am forgetting?
BC: No, those are our key geographical markets, but from an audience segment perspective Gourmet Ads concentrates on reaching the grocery buyer online. We tend to see this demographic being 27 – 55 year old female who makes the majority of the grocery buying decisions in the household. From a targeting perspective we then separate this up to 3 different age demographic targets enabling advertiser to target them via the sites in the network.
AdNetworks.NET: What competitive advantages does your previous experience as an Executive Chef, TV Co-Host, and Cookbook Author provide you when servicing your clients?
BC: Having experience in the food industry from being behind the stove to presenting recipes in front of a camera has certainly provided a great deal of understanding of what the public likes when it comes to food. Additionally having worked in online media and owned my own website prior to developing Gourmet Ads gave me real insight into how companies can use online to develop brand awareness and generate sales.
AdNetworks.NET: Without giving away your secrets, what makes for a successful campaign for an advertiser in your vertical looking to launch an online advertising campaign?
BC: The first is being relevant to our audience. Obviously food and wine advertisers have increased success simply because they are food and wine products. But we do run a great deal of advertising for non food or wine products and once again the advertising itself needs to be relevant to our audience of female, 27-55 years old. Areas that do perform well include Automotive, Travel, Financial and Lifestyle based campaigns.
The second is creative. There is no doubt that great looking creative with key messaging and strong calls to action outperforms ordinary ads. We highly recommend that clients produce Flash ads compared to static and we work hard with advertisers to develop creative that works. When possible we ask that they provide 2 or 3 sets of ads, so we can determine the best performing ad unit and messaging for campaign success.
AdNetworks.NET: How does working with Adify enhance your ability to deliver quality results for your advertiser and publisher partners?
Adify have been a great partner from day one and working with them has definitely given us competitive edge because of their platform. Adify provides us a wide range of targeting features allowing us to hone in on a client’s target market. Additionally working with Adify provides us the ability to manage hundreds of publisher relationships, opposed to just being an ad server.
AdNetworks.NET: Again, without giving away too much, are you finding certain technologies or targeting features most effective for an advertiser’s campaigns in your vertical?
Because we are a global network, every campaign we run must have some sort of geo targeting. We have the ability to go down to the zip level right up to country or global level. This has allowed us to work with smaller clients such as regional supermarkets and grocery store clients who only want to reach small areas such as 3 or 4 DMA’s. A fair percentage of clients are also using some sort of cookie based targeting as part of their campaigns.
AdNetworks.NET: Should small advertisers check out Gourmet Ads or do you primarily work with advertisers with a large ad spend?
Yes, we work with both global companies undertaking brand advertising right down to small family owned ecommerce sites requiring a direct response focus. Because of our geo targeting capabilites, we can restrict a advertising campaign to display locally in just a Zip Code, thus not wasting impressions in areas that are not relevant.
AdNetworks.NET: How do you define “quality content” when selecting publishers for your network?
The key is that unlike the majority of other ad networks, we simply don’t allow just any website to join and start running ad tags straight away. Every site we include in the Gourmet Ads network must adhere to our strict guidelines which are openly published on www.gourmetads.com . By rejecting unsuitable sites from the network means that we provide advertisers an environment which is brand safe and transparent.
For inclusion in the network, we look for a well designed website with uniquely developed content and a solid audience. We also work with sites to ensure they have ad units above the fold, thus making sites as attractive as we can for advertisers.
AdNetworks.NET: Ad exchanges have received significant media attention over the past 6 months.What are your thoughts on ad exchanges? Do you feel that comparing a premium, brand network to an ad exchange’s “remnant inventory” is “apples and oranges”?
We don’t use ad exchanges, because our clients require 100% transparency on which sites where their ads will run. Additionally because we have strict editorially criteria for sites to be included in the network we prefer not to run our ads on sites we don’t “know”.
AdNetworks.NET: Why should someone who hasn’t tried out a vertical network take a look?
BC: Particularly for food and wine advertisers, vertical ad networks such as Gourmet Ads provides advertisers the ability to buy and target advertising on multiple sites in one transaction, eliminating buying on a site-by-site basis. Because we specialise in food and wine, we know what works for advertisers and what doesn’t.
AdNetworks.NET: How has the ad network community developed since you got involved and where do you see it heading?
Since we started a few years back, the ad network community has certainly exploded which has increased the competition in the market place. Heading towards the future, I feel that there needs to be a little consolidation and I believe that as the economy returns, we’ll see acquisitions from not only other ad networks, but I believe they we’ll see media companies starting to buy into ad networks allowing them to increase their reach and viability in the long term.
AdNetworks.NET: Any exciting announcements/plans for the New Year?
As we roll into 2010, we’ve got lots on. The year starts with an advertising agency road show across London as we prepare to expand out UK network. Not only are we expanding the UK, but we’re recruiting more sites into the network enabling greater reach for clients, particularly in the US and Canada.
Throughout 2009 we’ve experienced a great deal of enquiry for beyond the banner placements, and we’re currently developing higher impact units for clients. Our team is working on about 4-5 different placements which can be deployed across hundreds of sites quickly and cost efficiently to provide greater ROI for advertising clients.
The full interview can be found at www.adnetworks.net
Driving a Social Audience
February 12, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Most brands (particularly food and wine brands) these days have developed or are in the process of developing their social networking strategy. Some will opt for a Facebook Page others will use Twitter, while others will opt to develop their own platform. Irrespective of the platform, how are you driving a relevant audience to your social networking environment?
For some it might feel foreign to drive traffic to a social networking page which you don’t actually own, but these platforms allow you to engage deeper with your audience of consumers. These people are your brand ambassadors. Simply by them adding your brand to their profile is an endorsement of your product. Over 4 million people have added the Coke Cola page to their Facebook profile which is the largest of any brand.
So how can Gourmet Ads build your social networking audience? There are two stages we would recommend as part of the development of any social networking strategy.
- The first is running a wide reaching ad campaign with creative encouraging them to join or follow your page. If budget allows the creative could even draw in the current conversation on the social networking page allowing the audience to engage by default. This initial burst will quickly bump up the numbers which will help from a viral aspect. It gets the ball rolling.
- Prior to the initial burst of activity we would provide a beacon which would need to be installed on your site. This simple Javascript drops a cookies for people that visit your site. Then we would run a longer campaign aimed at only people that have visited your site. The conversation rate for this campaign will be much higher than the initial burst, but will of course be lower in terms of the people because the funnel is smaller.
The key to a successful social networking is the creative, and where possible including a dynamic type aspect will certainly help get the audience engaged with your conversation straight away.
If you’re interested in Gourmet Ads driving traffic to your social networking pages, then Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
February Advertising Packages
February 10, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads continues to grow our audience of household grocery buyers with over a dozen new sites being added to the network just last week. Add to this, during January we expanded our operations into the UK with a week long agency roadshow there. So there hasn’t been a better time to run an advertising campaign or test with us.
Our February packages are based on last months packages, because we had such a good response to them. They feature extremely competitive CPM rates and once again we’ve including high visibility ad units including Intersitial Advertising and Floating Ads which are ideal for any food company or CPG advertiser who wants 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. Apart from just running in February, we can offer these packages right throughout Q1 2010.
If you’d like to review our February packages, simply go to the Contact Us page and mention “February 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.
