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
Cooking Ad Network
January 5, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
I was asked today by a kitchenware advertiser if Gourmet Ads was a cooking ad network. The reason the advertiser was asking, was if we were a cooking ad network was because they planned to run advertising nearby online recipes. The kitchenware media buyer added that placements located nearby online recipes was essential because this is where they had been seeing the best conversions. Our observations over the past 12 months are similar.
So after that question I thought I might highlight some of the sorts of sites in the Gourmet Ads network to illustrate that we are a cooking ad network and that we run next to online recipes.
Some of the sites that make up the Gourmet Ads network include;
- Recipe Websites
- User Generated Recipe Sites
- Cooking Video Sites
- Recipe Search Engines
- Cooking Forums
- Food Blogs
Apart from simply running beside recipes, the majority of the sites on the Gourmet Ads network can run beyond the banner campaigns including Floating Ads, Interstitial Ads and Over the Page to name just a few. These high profile, high impact creative advertising units provide unparamount engagement with targeted audiences.
So if you’re looking for a cooking ad network for your next campaign, then go no further. Start by downloading the Gourmet Ads Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team. We’ll develop a bespoke media plan for your brand that’s not only cost effective but highly targeted to your audience.
2010 Advertising Trends
November 20, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 7 Comments
Last year we wrote a blog called 2009 Advertising Trends where we looked gave a somewhat forecast of what we thought the trends would be. Some things we got right, others we didn’t. Certainly 2009 for most advertising companies is a year they’d rather put behind them.
So looking forward into next year, we thought we should but together a list again, this time with our 2010 advertising trends we think will happen in 2010. Some are from foundations of things that we’ve seen in mid to late 2009, others are purely speculative.
Any way we’d like to get your thoughts and comments on our 2010 Advertising Trends predictions. Because its 2010 we thought 10 would be a good number to start with, so here they are;
1. Media Buying via Vertical Ad Networks
We saw during 2009 a great deal of media buyers and media planners starting to include more vertical advertising networks into their client media plans. There is no question that Vertical Ad networks are an efficient means to reach niche audiences. So we believe that this trend will continue into 2010 and beyond. The key for all vertical ad networks (including us here at Gourmet Ads) is to ensure that we continue to deliver value for money on premium sites, whilst ensuring we provide quality audiences, reach and creative execution for all media buys.
2. Increased Online Media Spending
We’ve already seeing an increase in the budgets for 2010 RFP’s during Q4 in 2009. Companies and their advertising agencies that were only doing short term media buying are already asking for 12 month plans for 2010. We believe that as companies continue to reduce their TV, Radio and Print budgets they’ll be seeking to reach consumers online where the metrics can be measured. We’ve even heard from food companies that previously didn’t have an online strategy hiring digital teams and/or digital agencies.
3. Pre Roll Video
During 2009 we had a lot of agency folks indicate they were testing various video formats for clients. Some tested in-unit video, standalone video, pre roll, mid roll, post roll and video on interstitials. Agencies are now indicating that what is working for them is pre roll video and preferably with a companion ad. So we expect during 2010 that we’ll see increased demand for pre roll video inventory.
4.Increased spending by FMCG & CPG
This was a key advertising trend prediction last year and we’ve started to see this happen. Although some campaigns I question the messaging and creative, but overall many of the large FMCG / CPG companies are now actively spending online and consistently from month to month. We’re predicting we’ll see a raft of small to mid sized companies move to online in 2010 where they can easily compete with large FMCG / CPG companies, possibly on a localised / geo targeted basis.
5. Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes
Throughout 2009 the buzz word on nearly every RFP was “Beyond the Banner” and we don’t think this will change as we head into 2010. We believe that advertisers will be asking for more Non IAB units as part of campaigns from simple logos to standalone rich media. So what kind of Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes solutions excite advertisers? Try changeable backgrounds, recipes integrations, brand integrations and widgets to name a few. Additionally we’ll see these booked for longer periods such as 12 months or at least by the quarter.
6. Behavioral Targeting & Retargeting
If you’re at Adtech New York recently you would have noticed the vast amount of companies offering both Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting solutions. I even heard of one company that said vertical networks don’t have to have recruit publishers just gain access to pixels on people’s computers! We’re running more and more long term campaigns which include Behavioral Targeting of some sort. They are great for ecommerce sites and anywhere where conversions are critical. and we expect this advertising trend to continue well into 2010 and beyond.
7. CPM rates increase
We’re already seeing CPM rates increase in Q3 and Q4 2009. CPM rates for the most part are back at sensible levels compared to early 2009 when they were extremely under valued. Major publisher had to significantly discount. Although some markets are taking longer to recover than others, CPM rates across the globe are certainly increasing or are stable.
8. Interstitial Advertising
We touched on this above under Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes. As brands are looking for higher visibility in more non IAB units, Interstitials are a great way to deliver them and we believe that during 2010 more advertisers will be requesting them. They’ve been the secret for many direct response advertisers for sometime because of their high click through rates as well as engagement rates. Its not always inbound interstitials, some of our publishers who provide gateway content are offering outbound interstitials. Finally, don’t just expect to see static or rich media on Interstitials. We expect to see more 10 and 15 second video being used on Interstitials as advertisers look at more high profile avenues to engage with audiences.
9. More Coupon based Campaigns
Given the economic climate of 2009 we saw a great deal of brand campaigns which include some sort of discount coupon. For the most part these Coupon based campaigns have performed extremely well and we expect this advertising trend to continue in 2010. The majority of coupon campaigns have been run by large food companies, however we believe that in 2010 we’ll see smaller food companies and even wine companies using these sort of tactics to drive sales. Expect to see even more and more ecommerce sites using this tactic to drive sales.
10. Gourmet Ads will be the largest Food Network globally
Obviously as I’m in the driving seat, I can say with confidence that Gourmet Ads will continue to grow in our key markets of America, UK, Canada and Australia. Apart from this we’ll also start to see other markets emerge in Europe and Asia. We’ll continue to recruit quality publishers with fantastic audiences ensuring that campaigns perform.
We’d love to get your feedback on some of our 2010 Advertising Trends. So feel free to leave a comment.
Adtech New York
November 1, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads Founder and Managing Director, Benjamin Christie will be in New York visiting Adtech New York from the 4th to 6th November 2009. This year, Adtech New York is being held at the Javitz Center in Manhattan.
For those that don’t know Adtech held around the world is an interactive marketing conference and exhibition that delivers an up-close and informative look at digital media, marketing and advertising. Earlier this year, Benjamin actually spoke at Adtech Sydney about the growing trend of Vertical Ad Networks.
For those on Twitter, Follow Gourmet Ads for updates throughout Adtech New York. To follow everything that’s happening at Adtech use #adtech
If you’re attending Adtech New York or are based in New York and would like to organise a meeting with Benjamin while he’s in town then contact us to setup a meeting time.
New Media Kit
October 15, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Today we’ve published an updated version of our North American Media Kit.
The new edition discusses the opportunities we offer as well as information on our growing audience and network of sites which makeup the Gourmet Ads Network. Also included is a break down of key events throughout the year and how we can help make an impact for your brand.
We focus on reaching the household grocery buyer across a collection of selected food & wine sites from around America and the globe. Our network delivers your campaign to grocery buyers driving sales and consumer acquisition for your brand.
If you’re looking at advertising with us or just media planning a campaign, then it’s essential.
Targeting Grocery Buyers
September 3, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
We recently wrote a blog called Online Drives CPG Sales which was inspired by a Comscore study which found that online advertising can be as effective as television advertising in lifting retail sales of CPG brands. The study indicated that online advertising lifted retail sales of CPG brands by an average of 9% compared to 8% for TV advertising. With more CPGs moving online with increased budgets I thought it might be good to talk about how Gourmet Ads targets Grocery buyers, as well as where they actually do their grocery buying.
First off, here’s a little about the Gourmet Audience in regards to the grocery buying;
- They are the primary household grocery buyer
- They make more than 3 trips to the grocery store each month
- They spend anywhere from $200 to over $500 a month on groceries
- They search for food products online such as gourmet and organic
What are they buying?
Across a range of products, our Grocery Buying audience are typically buying week to week the following food products; Baby Foods, Carbonated Soft Drinks, Carbonated Water, Cereals, Cheese, Crackers, Dairy products, Dried Pasta, Juice, Gourmet Frozen Meals, Pizzas Frozen and Packaged Meats. Apart from foods, also high on the list are baby products such as diapers, baby formula as well as pet related products such as pet food and cat litter.
Where do they shop?
Some of our Grocery Buying audience are shopping online, but the vast majority are heading to the grocery store and placing products in the shopping trolley. They are heading to Albertsons, Aldi, Bi-lo, Food Emporium, Food Lion, IGA, Kroger, Lowes Foods, Pathmark, Pick’n Save, Publix, Ralph’s and Safeway to name a few.
So what are the takeaways from this ?
There is no doubt that the Gourmet Ads audience spends on groceries multiple times a month across a range of products (food and non-food) and grocery/supermarkets. Add to this they are also very active online researching food products such as gourmet and organic.
So if you’re a grocery store / supermarket, then running campaigns with Gourmet Ads to drive our audience to your store makes sense. You can run campaigns such as discounts, this week’s specials and more. For those advertising food products, its about building brand awareness prior to the trip to the grocery store / supermarket. You could use discount coupons or promotions to influence our audience to buy your products.
If you’re tasked with marketing to Grocery Buyers, then download our media kit, or request a proposal for your next online campaign.
Publisher Ad Serving
August 23, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
For the majority of sites which are part of the Gourmet Ads network, most will simply drop our ad tags into the code of the site and we’ll run 100% of the impressions. Gourmet Ads runs on the Adify platform which in many ways is a huge ad server so sites don’t need the added complexity of their own ad server as well as all the business rules associated to get going. From a monetization perspective this is the most ideal solution as we are selling your ads around the globe.
However for a limited numbers of publishers (we tend to see this on bigger sites only) this isn’t the most ideal solution. We’d recommend using an ad server to give you significant control on how ads are served on your site. It also means that you run multiple ads through the one ad space. We see a lot of the food blogs that are part of our network think that they need to run a number of ad units on a page, like running 3 skyscrapers for example. Not only does this look terrible, but the clickability of the page also decreases which means your page isn’t performing and we could optimize you out of the buy. But this isn’t the case anymore, as most ad servers are free these days.
Unlike other ad networks, Gourmet ads is non exclusive with our publishers which means you can run other networks. However, we do ask that you provide us an equal allocation to any other network running within your adserver. So sites wishing to use an ad server typically will fall into one of these categories;
- Have an internal sales team and using Gourmet Ads as part of the ad serving cycle.
- Wish to use geo-targeting, i.e. running Gourmet Ads in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia and other providers in the other countries.
- The need to run a different ad provider in each category of the site ie Gourmet Ads in the Food section and another provider in each category like Auto, Travel, Small Business etc.
- Prefer to use multiple sources of advertising such as Gourmet Ads and say Google Adsense.
The ability to run multiple ads from different providers will be very appealing to some publishers. We personally don’t recommend any one ad server to our publishers, but here are a few ad server related links to help you navigate the next step.
- Openx hosted – free, plus great geo targeting features and simplicity of use.
- Google Ad Manager – Very complex to setup, only suitable for very large sites with complex rules.
- Blog about Free Wordpress Ad servers
- 7 Great Ad Serving Solutions
Finally, if you’re a publisher and not part of the Gourmet Ads network, you can apply to join here.
Interstitial Advertising
August 22, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Advertisers on the Gourmet Ads network are always after high visibility for their brands and as such, we’ve recently introduced Interstitial Advertising into our suite of offering for clients. Interstitials advertising are a format that is gaining demand in online advertising and represent one of the most impressive ways to make customers aware of your product or brand.
What is interstitial advertising?
Interstitial advertising is when a splash page is displayed before an expected content page and thus attracts a high amount of response as they blend fairly well to the content page. They typically display for about 10 or 15 seconds and then take the viewer to the desired content page. On the destination page, roadblock advertising can be used to reinforce the brand message.
Most interstitials advertising is a HTML static page, however we’ve recently been receiving creative from clients and advertising agencies which include either rich media or even video content. Its important to note that interstitials advertising should be contextually relevant to the destination site, otherwise the engagement levels will be reduce for obvious reasons.
Also the key to interstitial advertising should be keep the creative concise, captivating, straight to the point as well as making sure that the ad loads fast.
Frequency Control
Usually an interstitial advertisement is capped to display once every 24 hours (1/24) and the mandatory use of frequency controls ensures a positive user experience. The last thing you want to do is running persistent interstitial advertising.
Benefits of interstitial advertising
- High Impact visual presence
- Extreme level of engagement
- Break out of the banner mold
If you’d like to run interstitial advertising on the Gourmet Ads network, then request a proposal from us or download a copy of the Gourmet Ads Media Kit.
Q4 Advertising
August 20, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Q4 is just around the corner and for Gourmet Ads, Q4 is considered the business end of the year for us. Generally speaking, companies such as food, wine and grocery and their advertising agencies reserve the majority of the annual advertising budgets for Q4. There are a number of reasons why this is the case which we’ll address a bit later, but lets first look at why traffic increases during Q4.
Year on year, publishers during Q4 tend to see an increase of approximately 20-25% compared to throughout the year. There’s the obvious environmental reasons such as cold weather outside encourages people to stay in and go online. But add to this, the volume of consumers who are searching for recipes increases greatly during this period. Take for example the search “Turkey Recipe” which is illustrated in the graph below and shows the intense amounts of search during this time for that search throughout the tail end of Q4.
So because the traffic across the Gourmet Ads network grows during this period, we also increase our overall reach of the network. Which means that advertising at this time of the year allows you to capture, influence and engage audiences online, increasing sales and revenue.
So what else contributes to an increased spend in Q4 advertising? There are a number of events and general consumer habits that trigger the increase in advertising budgets. We’ve highlighted a few including;
- Thanksgiving ( see Thanksgiving Advertising )
- Black Friday Shopping
- Christmas Shopping
- Christmas ( see Christmas Advertising )
- End of year travel
So it makes sense that if you’re tasked with marketing a product during Q4, then you need to start media planing and media buying right now. We’ve heard horror stories from advertisers who didn’t book premium inventory in advance and were left advertising on lesser networks and websites which didn’t perform, and thus revenue was reduced. Also the earlier you start media planning the better CPM rates that can be negotiated. Media Planing a few days before Thanksgiving and you’re going to pay a high CPM for your campaign.
If you’d like to receive a proposal from Gourmet Ads to run a Q4 advertising campaign, then Request a Proposal from us right now. Be sure to highlight the dates you’d like the campaign to run as well as key audiences that you’d like to reach.
12 Month Media Plans
August 7, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
Typically speaking, Gourmet Ads is sent RFPs (request for proposals) from advertising agencies usually 2 months or 3 months before a campaign is slated to commence. What we’ve found throughout 2009 that the majority of the media plans were short lead time, sometimes the same week opposed to 2008 when we were given very long lead times. But as great deal of food and wine companies are now starting their 2010 advertising budgets, we are finding that things have changed again.
What we’ve recently been receiving from advertising agencies is requests for not just proposals for campaigns, but we’re being asked to help develop a 12 month media plan. Either with or without budgets, we’re able to develop a complete plan. Some of the areas we take into consideration when developing a 12 month media plan are;
- Peaks and Troughs of traffic
- Seasonal Issues (Holiday Periods)
- Products Selection
- Environmental issues (weather)
- Micro site development
- Share of voice throughout the plan
One of the advantages of developing a 12 month media plan is the ability to targeting consumers though over the life of the campaign. Using technology based targeting such as Behavioral Targeting can help to reach the most relevant people throughout the campaign.
If you’d like Gourmet Ads to help prepare your 12 month media plan we generally require much more information in your brief than compared to campaigns briefs. Ideally we’d also prefer to be given a budget; however we can develop 12 month media plans without a budget.
For more information about Gourmet Ads, download our media kit or request a proposal from us.
