Officially and for the majority of the publishers in Gourmet Ads, the 160×600 sized ad unit is the standard sized skyscraper. Over time we’ve found that for most publishers, the 160×600 is the most popular size around the world, however in the UK, the 120×600 is the most popular size. When you’re working with hundreds of sites around the world like we do at Gourmet Ads, it’s essential to have standards.

For us, the UK is the only territory in the world where advertising agencies supply us a 120×600 sized skyscraper. Sometimes we’ll only be provided a 120×600, however more agencies are providing both sizes.

For UK Publishers we’re often asked for the 120×600 sized ad tag, however we always prefer to provide the 160×600 as a rule. In saying that a handful of publishers are restricted to the design of their sites and as such we have to work within those barriers.

In determining which sized skyscraper to use, there are two scenarios we consider and both depend on where your website traffic originates. For a UK Publisher with only UK traffic, then the 120×600 is suitable. However for international sites with traffic in the UK, it’s essential to only use the 160×600.

When it comes to trafficking and where we’ve only been provided a 120×600, we’ll traffic that ad into the center of the 160×600 sized ad unit. That way we still can deliver the reach required for the advertiser without having to ask publishers to run the 160×600.

If you’d like to apply to become a Publisher with Gourmet Ads, visit;
http://www.gourmetads.com/publishers/signup-as-a-publisher

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

Gourmet Ads is currently seeking New Zealand based Recipe Sites and Food Bloggers to join our NZ network.

So what are we looking for? We’re looking for food based sites that produce 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 New Zealand. This is important as some advertisers only want to advertise on .co.nz sites. However if you have an international site with good levels of New Zealand traffic, please apply also.

Our Auckland based sales team works with food brands, supermarkets, wine companies as well as various other lifestyle, automotive and travel sites. Gourmet Ads will totally manage your advertising inventory and provide monthly revenue which allows you to concentrate on what you do best; Producing Great Food Content!

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.

Learn more about the benefits of becoming a Publisher with Gourmet Ads.

So no matter if you’re based in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or Rotorua we’re looking for great NZ Publishers.

Join Gourmet Ads network now

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

For publishers, our goal at Gourmet Ads is to display the most relevant and highest paying advertisement every time your page is viewed to maximize revenue. However publisher earnings are affected by a number of key variables and as such it’s impossible for us to predict what sort of CPM rate or what type of revenue an individual publisher can earn.

Ultimately, your earnings are driven by how much advertisers will pay to reach your readers.

Key Variables which impact CPM rates and monthly earnings include;

• Size of your audience
• Number of pages viewed each month
• Number of ads per page
• Demographic composition of your readership
• Geographical composition
• Performance – does your site have a high click through rate on ads?

So what can you do as a publisher to get higher paying CPM rates?

• Have Ads above the fold – many higher paying CPM campaigns are only run on ad spaces above the fold. We recommend that publishers have at least 2 ads above the fold.
• Allow us to run Non IAB Units – Most sites only allow us to run standard size ads such as 728×90, 300×250, 160×600. Sites that allow us to run campaigns with Interstitials, Pre Roll Video, Over the Page, Floating Ads, Background Skins will earn more as these attract much higher CPM rates.
• Create new content all the time – sites that create content daily often outperform sites that create content once per week.
• Enrol to the Gourmet Ads Traffic Booster Program – We’ve created a 35 day program to help increase the traffic to your site. Each day we send you an easy to implement idea that will help build traffic. Its completely free and we’ve seen individual traffic rates increase by over 500%.  Enrol here.

Be sure to also read this blog on What CPM Rate can I expect?

If you’d like to apply to join Gourmet Ads then you can apply here

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

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.

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

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.

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

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.

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

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

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

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.

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

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.

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed

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.

1. 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”
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

Gourmet Ads is a Vertical Advertising Network specialising in Food Advertising, Wine Advertising and Beer Advertising on the Adify Platform. We also provide Advertising Agencies both Media Planning and digital strategy, look out for new site Grocery Coupons. Follow us on Twitter or on Friend Feed