New Zealand Recipes Sites Wanted
August 2, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
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.
Recipes Recipes Recipes
July 2, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
For brands looking to influence grocery buyers online, there are two real options.
The first is the spray and pray method, derived from a military term for not aiming, but firing in the general direction. The best illustration of this is where brands book say the home page of a portal for a day. Apart from reaching just the household grocery buyer, you reach the father, son, daughter, grand father, social gamer, automotive enthusiast and technophile. Not really the best form of efficiently if you’re trying to reach the grocery buyer.
The second method is to work with a media company, such as Gourmet Ads who not only understands how to reach the grocery buyer online, but specializes in reaching the grocery buyer online. When you start targeting a niche like the grocery buyer, sure the reach isn’t anywhere near as huge, but the upside is the spend is less and the media is much more efficient than reaching everyone on the internet.
Why do we know how to reach the grocery buyer online? Easy. Over the past few years we’ve developed a vast community of recipe sites, and we’ve worked hard to ensure that our ads run close or nearby recipes online. This is where meal decisions are made and grocery shopping lists are developed.
Because reaching grocery buyers online is all we do their isn’t any deviation from the focus. Sure we have a strong female demographic, but we don’t have lifestyle sites, beauty sites or gossip, we only do food and more specially recipes online. This is great if you’re marketing food products with the aim of increasing sales.
So if you’re responsible for booking campaigns aimed at reaching the grocery buyer online, then Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
Brand Safe Environment
March 5, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads works with well-known brands right around the world and one of the important things we strive to deliver each and every day is a brand safe environment for our advertisers and their ad agencies.
So what does a brand safe environment mean? A brand safe environment is one where advertisers can be rest assured that their advertising will run on approved premium websites. There has been unscrupulous ad networks in the past who’ve been trafficking premium brand advertising across brand-damaging objectionable content, causing major PR issues for all of those involved.
The Gourmet Ads Brand Safe Environment
We believe that technology sometimes has its flaws, so we prefer to use a manual process, coupled with technology to ensure our brand safe environment. As such Gourmet Ads ensures a brand safe environment for advertisers in three separate ways;
- Transparency to Advertisers
Prior to any advertising campaign going live, we provide advertisers a full list of sites that are part of Gourmet Ads. We do of course add sites all the time, but overall we do offer total transparency for our Brand Safe Environment. - Hand Selected Editorially Selected Recipes Sites
Websites can’t just join Gourmet Ads and start serving ads straight away. First off every site must meet our selection criteria (detailed here) and then they are manually reviewed. Each of URL is then screened by our publishing team for both theme and content. Because we know the food and recipe space, we know very quickly if we want them part of Gourmet Ads. Some ad networks have the reputation of taking any publisher that comes through the door, and unfortunately many do. We’re proud of our high rejection rate! - Tagging of Approved Sites
Apart from simply adding sites to Gourmet Ads – each site is tagged with keywords for additional trafficking. i.e sample tags include for “Above the Fold” and “Privacy Policy”. So if a advertiser only wanted to run with sites that have a Privacy Policy we can easily traffic this. - URL Restrictions
Apart from the manual process detailed above, our final check is via technology, ensuring that ads are only served on approved URLs and that our ad tags are not trafficked across other sites.
For more about the Gourmet Ads network, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
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.
Advertising Online Recipes
August 11, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
We recently wrote a blog called Recipes for 50% which talked about how some research by JupiterResearch which indicated that 50% of online users are looking for food and cooking information online. Since then we’ve been told about some research from Nielsen’s NetRatings, which like Jupiter has determined that the most popular food related activity online is searching for recipes. So I thought we’d go a little bit deeper into this trend and look at why consumers are heading online to search for recipes and how advertisers can reap the rewards of this trend.
So why are consumers moving online to find recipes? Well there is no doubt that consumers prefer to search and find recipes online opposed to ploughing through cookbooks to find a recipe. Obviously because its quick and easy, but other reasons include;
- Cost – nearly every online recipe site is free
- Video Recipes – More and more recipes sites are now including videos on how to cook particular recipes. So instead of trying to workout how to create a particular recipe, you can site and watch the recipe being created first then make it yourself.
- Recipe Authors – The majority of recipe websites publisher user generated recipes which are created by everyday cooks opposed to chefs. As such most recipes online tend to have a family focus opposed to a fine dining experience.
- Social interaction – many recipes sites allow you rate recipes their. Consumers who have cooked recipes previously can provide comments and suggestions about the recipes, helping you steer away from recipes that don’t work.
- Extensive choice - there are literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of recipes online compared to the 100 or so in a cookbook. You can compare recipe against recipe and determine the ones that look the best.
- Search by ingredients – For people that have an ingredient in the cupboard or fridge they want to use. On most recipe sites they allow you to search by that particular ingredient showing recipes that use the ingredient.
So how can food companies reach this audience of food consumers and household grocery buyers. We know because of our audience profiling at Gourmet Ads that people that visit online recipe sites tend to be the household grocery buyer. As such advertising along side recipes can have a significant effect on sales at the supermarket. Gourmet Ads can develop a strategically placed advertising campaign where you’re advertising is place along side recipes.
For more information about Advertising Online Recipes, then download the Gourmet Ads Media Kit or Request a Proposal from us.
Recipes for 50%
July 21, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
An interesting report from JupiterResearch called “Targeting Online Food Lovers — Identifying Segments and Online Advertising Opportunities,” reveals that 50% of online users are looking for food and cooking information online. Let me say that again – 50% of online users are looking for food and cooking information online.
Monique Levy of JupiterResearch noted that food fans typically are looking for the specific information found on food sites, rather than the more general food information found on health and wellness sites. “Online food lovers use food destination sites and manufacturer sites the most, rather than branded product sites and health- and lifestyle-related Websites,” Ms. Levy said.
This research shows that it’s not just foodies which use the internet to research recipes, but in actual fact it’s the wider internet audience who uses the internet as a resource for food information. This in turn means that advertising in and around recipes can have a huge effect at the supermarket checkout. One thing that the report also indicated was that people are not looking for cheap foods online, rather they are seeking information on gourmet or organic products.
So where does the half of the internet looks for food, recipes and cooking information online? Well if you take a look at the sites within the Gourmet Ads network, they are typically;
1. Recipe Portals
2. Regional Recipe Sites – like Australian Recipes
3. Nich Food Sites – like New Orleans Cuisine
4. Food Blogs
5. Chef and Restaurant sites
Major food manufactures as well as food equipment companies understand that people search for recipes online. Which is why online savvy companies like Nestle and Kraft have developed and published a wide range of recipe and food content on their sites.
So with such a volume of consumers coming to food and recipes sites, it makes sense for food and food related companies to advertise online to reach these large audiences. Add to this the diverse range of people looking for recipes also means that products which are not food related will perform – check out a blog we wrote sometime ago called “Not only Food, Wine or Beer”.
If you’d like to advertise in or around recipes on the internet, download the Gourmet Ads Media Kit or Request a Proposal from us.
Article Source ; http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1004743
Expandable Ad Units
July 9, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Advertisers and particularly advertising agencies are always looking at techniques to engage with an audience online and showcase their brand. One such way is via Expandable Ad Units. Expandable Ad Units do as they suggest; they expand outside of their usual size and spread over the top of the page content, either by auto expand, on click or rollover. Audio and video need to be initiated users directly. Gourmet Ads now offers Expandable Ad Units on all 3 creative sizes, which are 300 x 250, 728 x 90 and 160 x 600. See Gourmet Ads Expandable Ad Specifications.
One of the great things about Expandable Ad Units is the ability to include video not only in the initial load, but in the expand offering a rich experience to audiences. Add to this the increase in real estate allows you to add more features than you’d normally include in an ad unit. Some of the expanding ad units we’ve run are very “widget like” allowing users to interact with them more. You could also collect data from the user, or offer a print out – all done in the ad unit.
In our experience, Expandable Ad Units vastly out perform regular creative by at least 30% campaign to campaign. This because the campaign is visually appealing to the audience, encouraging them to engage with the campaign directly. Combine both Expandable Ad Units and regular display ads together in a road blocking campaign and you’ll have the same sort of reach that TV achieves.
So how could you as the advertiser use Expandable Ad Units on the Gourmet Ads network?
Easy, here are a few quick ideas;
- Showcase a product in a recipe with video and techniques
- Show a map of your all of your stores
- Celebrity Chef using your products via a video
- New wine release with a video from the wine maker
- Food and Wine pairing
- Movie Trailer
- New Car Release
If you’re looking at undertaking an advertising campaign and need to make an impact, consider using Expandable Ad Units. For more information, please download our media kit or request a proposal from us.
Publish Content all the Time
June 28, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
One question I’m asked all the time is how often should I publish content? I think the publishing schedule for a commercially focused recipe site is going to be very different to that of a personal food blog. On the wine side a site that professes to review every bottle on earth will be different to a small wine site that reviews the odd wine from time to time. There’s no simple answer to how much you should exactly publish, but the key is to publish content all the time.
One question I’m asked all the time is how often should I publish content? I think the publishing schedule for a commercially focused recipe site is going to be very different to that of a personal food blog. On the wine side a site that professes to review every bottle on earth will be different to a small wine site that reviews the odd wine from time to time. There’s no simple answer to how much you should exactly publish, but the key is to publish content all the time.
Here at Gourmet Ads we try to publish a blog every weekday, but I read some marketing blogs that post 10-15 blogs per day and others that write a article once a week. You need to work out what works for you and more importantly what your audience prefers. Are you better to write a great post once a week or 7 average articles per week.
There is no doubt that websites and blogs that publish content all the time do better in the search engines. Add to this, as you push content our via RSS you’re exposing your audience to click on the links and come back to your site.
However depending on the format of your website or blog, do you and your team have to produce content? Could you allow your audience to produce content (user generated content) like recipes to the site. Could you let them do the hard work? Also it doesn’t have to be just written content to drive traffic; you might produce a daily video or podcast. There are lots of alternatives.
Newspaper and magazines (even web portals) establish a content plan to help decided when they’ll publish content. You should do the same, even if it’s a basic word file that you simply jot down ideas, you’ll always have a dozen or so ideas ready to go.
Finally here is a great guide which I found at about.com about publishing blogs.
- For maximum growth: post multiple times per day to drive the most traffic (3-5 times or more is considered best for power bloggers).
- For steady growth: post at least once per day.
- For slower growth: publish at least every 3 days or 2-3 times per week.
- For very slow growth: posting less frequently than 2-3 days per week is most appropriate for bloggers who maintain blogs as a hobby with no strategic plans for growth
Fall Media Planning
June 16, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
It’s mid June and we’re already having companies lock away their fall campaigns with Gourmet Ads. It’s typical to see this sort of six month forward planning with campaigns booked already pretty much focus on holiday periods such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Just like snow falling, media planner and media buyers need to take a blanket approach with high share of voice to ensure their products gain the attention they desire online. With this in mind, it’s key to lock it in as soon as possible.
Fall is so important to many food and wine companies. Not only are the holiday periods key, but we find that traffic generally increases to our sites during the fall. There are a variety of reasons for why we see this trend of increased traffic (I believe the main reason is that cold weather contributes with more people generally staying in) during the fall period. Take a look at the graph below from Google Trends for the keyword search “recipes”. Towards the end of each year take a look at the common annual trends for people searching “recipes”. Given that the majority of sites in the Gourmet Ads network feature recipes we also see this trend rather consistently.
Media planners and media buyers should look at starting campaigns in early September and October, then mid November vamping it up to high share of voice. Focusing on key dates around Thanksgiving, then Black Friday, the last few days of online Christmas spending and then Christmas spending.
We’ve previously write blogs on Thanksgiving Advertising and Christmas Advertising which both focus on each of these topics. Both blogs give you ideas on timing and what can be done in the lead up to both thanksgiving and Christmas.
So although we’ve just started the US summer, planning your advertising campaigns at the end of the year is something that should be happening now. Our team would be happy to develop a Digital Media Plan for your consideration, to do this, simply visit Request a Proposal. Or if you’re simply looking at all the opportunities in the market, then start by downloading our media kit.
Recipe Search Engine
June 15, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 2 Comments
Today is a really simple task in the traffic booster program.
Apart from the main search engines which we’ve already talked about, there is a great opportunity to have your recipe content indexed by brand new recipe search engine called Recipe Bridge.
Recipe Bridge has recently gained a great deal of main stream press recently which has seen recipe search increase.
So to submit your recipes to Recipe Bridge go to;
www.recipebridge.com/addsite.php
