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.

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

We recently wrote a blog on Search Retargeting and how you use the search engines to find relevant users for your products then using display advertising retarget them with highly related advertising. Since the Search Retargeting blog, we’ve had a great deal of enquiry asking about more generalised Retargeting Strategies to help generate a high return on investment for your online campaigns.

If you’re selling products online, the most important thing is for you to develop some sort of Retargeting Strategy. The sooner you start serving cookies, the sooner you can start retargeting and generating sales.

So first off what is retargeting?
Retargeting is tactic used by online advertisers who target previous website visitors and serve them an advertisement encouraging them to revisit the site and complete a purchase. The advertisements which get served could be via a roadblock or sequential targeting and can offer the user a range of advertising messages in order to complete the sale. This is done by dropping a cookie on the user’s machine depending on behaviour targeting criteria which we’ll go into detail further.

Why would I want to use retargeting?
There is no doubt that consumers do a great deal of research online before making a purchase and for products with long purchasing cycles retargeting is a strategy to keep your brand or website top of mind with your target audience. Often when a user starts off researching a product to buy they will visit a wide range of sites looking for information on the product. At this time if you drop a cookie with some information on their behaviour you can target this later in the purchasing cycle.

Who do you target?
There are few options to consider.

1. Everyone – you should begin immediately gathering data on who visits your site, particularly if you’re a smaller or niche ecommerce site. You can target these users with branding campaigns in the future.
2. People who look at particular products. I’d personally mark any user that looks at a high margin product. It’s no good marking low margin products because you’ll eliminate the margin with the advertising cost. Just stick to high margin products. These sorts of people can be targeted with product specific advertising, drawing them back to the site in the future.
3. People that don’t complete the shopping cart. These types of people are obviously ready to buy, but there was something in the way that stopped the transaction. It’s usually either comes down to price or shipping costs. If you can eliminate an obstacle and bring people back to complete their shopping cart with 20% off your order if you buy today or free shipping then your conversion rate increases and you get the sale.
4. People that signup for a member or newsletter but don’t purchase. They are obviously interested in your products, but are not ready to buy. Could these people benefit from offering them a free catalogue or a discount coupon in order to buy?

What are some of the offers or messaging I could retarget my audience with?
Anything really, the ideas are endless. The key is running different retargeting creative which appeals to that audience demographic. Some ideas on retargeting campaigns could include;

• 24 hour sale (everything reduced)
• Discount Code or Coupon Code
• Specific discount on a particular product
• Become a member and get a catalogue or white paper
• Signup to the Newsletter

Where would the Retargeting Campaign run?
The campaign would be run back in the Gourmet Ads network traffic pool. Our systems will start locating your retargeting cookies the moment they leave your site. So if a user has had a cookie dropped on your site, then visits a site within our network, they’ll see retargeting campaigns straight away.

With a proper retargeting strategy, you can expose that consumer to specific ads as they surf and shop outside the walls of your site. For products with a longer purchase cycle, retargeting leverages sequential advertising to reinforce your message as the consumer goes through the research and consideration process prior to completing a purchase.

To learn more about developing a Retargeting Strategy for your site or ecommerce store,  contact us for more information and we’ll prepare a proposal for your consideration.

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

There are two important parts to every online advertising campaign and both being equally important when it comes to Optimizing Advertising Campaigns. So what are they?

These are ;

1.    The “where” refers to websites and blogs that are relevant to your target audience.
2.    The “what” refers to your actual advertising creative you provide.

First off, let’s talk about the “Where”. No matter the campaign, there will always be a publisher where your advertising gets plenty of impressions, but attracts very few click throughs. So, instead of wasting your advertising dollars, the trafficking staff at Gourmet Ads can, mid duration optimize your advertising campaigns to maximise clicks and performance. Optimizing Advertising Campaigns is an important part of every campaign and a simple cull of non-performing sites can significantly increase the aggregated click through rate of the campaign.

Now comes the “What”. Depending on the creative, some ads will perform better than other within the same campaign. We regularly receive from advertisers, multiple advertising creative for a campaign. A week after the campaign has launched, Gourmet Ads can optimize your advertising campaigns by removing the creative that isn’t performing. Of course you have to try different things once in a while to see what works and what doesn’t, but once you find out that a particular creative isn’t performing it is time to pull it and focus on the ads that are working to maximize your advertising campaigns effectiveness. When this happens we simply shift the budget from the non-performing advertisement across to the performing creative.

Optimizing Advertising Campaigns is all about increasing their performance and the return for advertisers, so if your advertising network isn’t optimizing your campaigns, contact Gourmet Ads and book your media with us.

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

The most effective online advertising campaigns are those place your advertising on highly relevant websites. You want to get straight to your target audience and especially while they are thinking about your type of product. Many of the Gourmet Ads publishers in our wine vertical produce wine reviews, so why not advertise where wine consumers are learning about wines and reading reviews? It doesn’t matter whether your wine label is specifically mentioned in the review, although a positive wine review can have a massive impact on wine sales. The point is that people reading wine reviews are going to generally be in the market for wine.

If the wine blog happens to be talking about how well a nice, smooth Merlot tastes with a grilled lamb chop with herb sauce and you are selling a Merlot, you are certain to sell more wine. Or maybe they are extolling the health benefits of drinking red wines, you may sell more Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Syrah or Pinot Noir. Even if the wine blog or review isn’t talking about your particular label or wine variety, you are still advertising to wine lovers while they are thinking about wine and that is the very definition of a highly targeted online advertising campaign.

Good reviews attract traffic and traffic generates sales as they put the consumer into a positive frame of mind about wine. Wine consumers are always looking for something new to try and catching them while they are reading wine reviews is the perfect time to interest them in your offerings. Even “wine newbies” who are coming to the review sites to learn will be interested in trying a wine they see advertised. Getting your wine advertised next to wine reviews is a great way to strategically place yourself in the right place at the right time.

If you’d like to advertise in our wine vertical, download a media kit or request a proposal.

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

This week I had a client who was developing his 2009 advertising budget and asked me about advertising on Facebook and if he should allocate budget. He said that the CPM rates are very low and that was his biggest attraction, not so much the platform. I thought it would be important to share our response to him and the path we took to provide a greater media buy for our client.

Facebook, as with most social network advertising has seen extremely low click through rates since the platforms were developed. This was something that Google actually predicted and have seen themselves. There’s evidence to show that people are more likely to click on advertising when they are actively looking for products and services or researching a particular topic such as recipe or a wine review.

The trouble with advertising in social networks is that people are actually socializing online. They are engaged with the content of their friends, learning about what they did or where they are and even chatting with them. Even though the advertising is located in the best real estate of the page it literally doesn’t get seen by the user.

There is no doubt that Facebook has a greater reach than Gourmet Ads. But how targeted is the advertising? I’m not talking about Geo Targeting because I know that Gourmet Ads would deliver the same result, but I am talking about reaching a real foodie or real wine connoisseur. Many of the sites that Gourmet Ads represents attract a specific foodie or wine connoisseur audience naturally. Now compare this to someone putting Food or Wine as an interest in their Facebook profile. Sure the campaign maybe targeted at that keyword but everyone likes Food and Wine!!!!!

So what did we recommend to our client?

1. Create his own Facebook user profile and evangelize his product
   I felt this was very important, because he can easily communicate to his audience or niche and talk about his product. I also recommended that he establish a Twitter account as well.





2. Continue to brand advertise at key peak times with Gourmet Ads (Black Friday, Christmas etc)
   Our client sells an expensive kitchen product which isn’t an emotional purchase buy. It’s something that you buy once every 10-15 years, so we believe that throughout the years that he run branding campaigns around the product to drive sales at these peak times.





3. Undertake Behavioral Targeting Advertising
   We are currently undertaking some research on what Behavioral Targeting options are available to him and how he can target potential customers.





4. Become one of our remanent partners
   We’ve suggested that he look at totally untargeted, wide reaching advertising campaigns which runs all the time. We’ve offered a low CPM rate with no guarantee on impressions. If the network sells out at a premium his advertising is put on hold.

I guess the final element of having a relationship with Gourmet Ads is that you have a relationship with Gourmet Ads. We’ll work with you directly to make sure your advertising campaign is working. We’ll help optimize it to reach the conversion rates you need to succeed online.

To learn more about Gourmet Ads and how we can optimize your advertising campaigns, download our Media Kit or contact us.

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 online marketers believe that the only metric to measure the success of an online campaign is the click through rate. This can certainly be true for advertising campaigns which need to take viewers to their website or landing page to engage with them, i.e. download a coupon or register for updates. But click through rate isn’t the only metric for measuring the success of an online advertising campaign.

Branding Campaigns tell the audience about a product as well as how they can buy the product and are in many ways very similar to a traditional print, radio or TV campaign. The key concept in running an online branding campaign for your food, wine or beer brand is that if you put a positive message about your company in front of enough people for enough time, they will think about your company when they’re ready to buy.

Online Branding Campaigns especially suit products in the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) space like beverages, groceries, tea/coffee, frozen products, spreads, cereals, pasta and kitchen cleaners to name just a few. In just a few frames of a flash advertisement you’ll need to get across the unique selling point of your product, which could be that it’s cholesterol free, organic or even easy to prepare. You’ll also need to mention where you can purchase the product.

So what’s the ultimate metric for a successful online branding campaign? That’s easy. Sales of your product.

You’ve got your targets to make, so why not undertake a wide reaching online branding campaign for your food, wine or beer brand. Contact us for a proposal.

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