Increasing Publisher’s Traffic
March 8, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Last year, Gourmet Ads launched our free Traffic Booster program for publishers to help increase traffic to their sites and blogs. For 36 days we sent an email with a simple task that publishers can do to help build your traffic. Some days we sent tasks which were search focused; others focused on telling people about your site.
Many publishers who participated saw significant growth in their traffic, one experienced a 300% increase in traffic after they implemented just a few of our suggestions. The reason we developed this program was simple – we’re commited to developing the traffic of our publishers and helping reach more people online.
Our Traffic Booster Program program now runs all the time, so no matter when you join, you’ll get the 36 tasks on how to increase your traffic. When new publishers of recipes sites and food blogs join the Gourmet Ads network we highly recommend they participate in the program.
If you publish a recipe site or food blog and want to join our free program visit the Gourmet Ads Traffic Booster page.
For publishers that are not part of the Gourmet Ads network, then you can apply here.
London Food Blogs
March 1, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads is currently seeking London based Food Bloggers 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.
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
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.
Monetize Your Food Blog
November 29, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Ok, so you’ve created a food blog and writing interesting unique and interesting content and you’re starting to get good traffic to the site. So next you’re thinking about how to Monetize Your Food Blog. Well there are lots of solutions out there for monetizing your food blog, so I thought I’d a short blog on what we look for and what we need in order to have you as part of our food advertising network.
- Ideally you need to have your food blog on its own top-level domain like blogname.com (not free hosted). This is really important as most brand advertisers are not interested in advertising on “blogging platforms”
- Your food blog needs to be designed or you’ve used a well designed theme. If you’re using Wordpress, we don’t want to see a stock standard food blog. It fact these days we’ll reject food blogs who haven’t made any sort of effort.
- You must be prepared to have at least 2 ads above the fold. This is essential for advertisers as the majority of clicks occur at the top of the page. You may need to re-design areas of your site to achieve this.
- Privacy Policy – rather essential these days to have one. Particular advertisers will only run their ads on sites which publish a privacy policy, see here for more it here.
- Gourmet Ads supports IAB size ads (728 x 90, 300×250 and 160 x 600) which are our standard sizes. However there’s a great deal of demand on non IAB sized ads also from advertisers. So Food Bloggers need to be prepared to run Interstitials, Over the Page ads etc.
- Although most of the sites in the network have solid traffic, your food blog needs to have over 5000 pages a month of traffic which equates to about 1000-1500 people per month.
Finally, we’re always looking for premium publishers to join the Gourmet Ads Network, however we thoroughly review all publisher applications which apply. By having strict publisher eligibility standards it enables us to attract premium advertisers, which in turn provide publishers high-quality, visually appealing advertising creative that is relevant to your audience.
To be considered as a publisher you can apply to the Gourmet Ads Network here.
728 x 90
November 28, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
The 728 x 90 is often referred to as the Leaderboard and typical placements are at the top of the page either above the content or within the header itself. The 728 x 90 is popular with types of sites and food blogs because they can neatly be place on top of the designed page and look they like it was designed to be there.
Gourmet Ads often run expandable 728 x 90 creative where the expandable section drop down.
Points of the 728 x 90
- Popular with both sites and food blogs
- Usually placed above content or in the header
- Can be run as an expandable unit or standard unit
- Approved IAB Unit
Here’s a sample of the 728 x 90, which is overhanging in to the side bar because it wasn’t designed to be placed here.
Need Gourmet Ads Creative Specifications?
Standard Creative Specifications
Expandable Creative Specifications
160 x 600
November 28, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
160 x 600 is often referred to as the Skyscraper or Wide Skyscraper and placements are typically at the top, middle left or middle right. They are popular with food blogs because of the natural design of a blog allowing a 160 x 600 to be placed in their side navigation or beside content and comments.
The 160 x 600 is ideal for widgets, allowing the widget to be deployed over a standard ad unit.
Points of the 160 x 600
- Popular with food blogs
- Usually placed beside content
- Can be run as an expandable unit or standard unit
- Ideal for widgets and types of rich media
- Approved IAB Unit
Need Gourmet Ads Creative Specifications?
Standard Creative Specifications
Expandable Creative Specifications
300 x 250
November 27, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Sample 300 x 250 Ad Unit
The 300x 250 is often referred to as the MREC, Media Rectangle or Island Ad unit is one of best performing ad units. Because of its dimensions, the 300 x 250 is ideal for in unit video, simply because it is much like a 4:3 TV screen. The 300 x 250 is also popular with widgets, allowing the widget to be deployed over a standard ad unit.
300 x 250 Placements are typically top left, middle left or within content.
Points of the 300 x 250
- Generally one of the highest performing ad units on the network
- Can be run as an expandable unit or standard unit
- Ideal for in unit video placement
- Ideal for widgets
- Ideal for all types of rich media
- Approved IAB Unit
Need Gourmet Ads Creative Specifications?
Standard Creative Specifications
Expandable Creative Specifications
