Advanced science. Smarter ad decisions. Superior monetization.


OpenX Blog

Introduction to Online Advertising for Absolute Beginners

by Yali Sassoon on February 7th, 2008

34 Comments »

  1. Hello

    We’d love to hear what you think of this first little presentation about online advertising. We have a few more in the pipeline which follow on from this one.

    Do you think this will be useful for you?
    What topics would you like us to cover in the future?
    What do you think of the format and length?

    cheers,
    Oliver George
    Openads Ltd

    Comment by Oliver George — February 7, 2008 @ 6:36 pm

  2. For a non techy and a new website owner it was still to vague.

    Comment by Monique — February 7, 2008 @ 8:36 pm

  3. For a quick review for what you can do with ads take a look at http://www.alleenmaaradvertenties.nl

    Comment by AMA — February 8, 2008 @ 8:17 am

  4. Thanks Monique.

    You’re right, it raises questions and doesn’t try to provide all the answers in a few slides. I hope it introduces key concepts for people who haven’t considered them before and encourages questions and comments.

    We’ll be adding more. What would you like/recommend we post about under the topic of “online advertising explained”?

    cheers, Oliver

    Comment by Oliver George — February 8, 2008 @ 8:57 am

  5. For examples on how you can use advertising on your website take a look here:
    http://www.alleenmaaradvertenties.nl

    Comment by AMA — February 8, 2008 @ 10:54 am

  6. For example, the slide says “Publisher paid if ad is displayed,” followed by the abbreviation “CPM.” What the hell does that mean? “PPIAID” is the abbreviation for “Publisher paid if ad is displayed.”

    Yeah, if I guess, I can assume it means “Count per” something, but is it really the best way to teach if we have to guess or assume?

    Comment by Frank — February 19, 2008 @ 8:50 pm

  7. Above was meant to be titled “Agree with Monique.” I thought the URL field was a title field — the kind that virtually all other comment functions offer.

    Comment by Frank — February 19, 2008 @ 8:52 pm

  8. Hi Frank

    There’s certainly a balance to be struck in detail and simplicity. I’m happy to answer _any_ questions here.

    “Publisher paid if ad is displayed” is the idea that the web publisher makes a small amount of money every time a website visitor views your web page and sees an ad. It’s often called CPM.

    For example, if I was a big brand company like Apple, I might arrange to advertise based on CPM to get as many people to see my brand as they browse the internet.

    cheers, Oliver

    Comment by Oliver George — February 20, 2008 @ 9:27 am

  9. [...] nicely with it’s product including updates, company blog, user groups & even videos like this one introducing rookies to the ways of online [...]

    Pingback by KTStudios - OpenX Ad Server Revolution — February 20, 2008 @ 7:52 pm

  10. According to Google CPM is Cost per thousand impressions. Nobody is paid if the ads are just displayed displayed. Someone has to click on them. So if your ad is shown 1000 times and is clicked twice at a rate of $0.10 per click your CPM is $0.20.

    The ‘M’ is the roman numeral for 1000.

    Comment by Fred Fling — April 8, 2008 @ 4:15 am

  11. Your description isn’t quite right. If you’re paid for clicks the amount you’re paid is called the cost per click (CPC). If you’re paid for impressions–ie, the number of times someone is shown the ad–the amount you’re paid is cost per mille (CPM). Yet another model is when you’re paid only when someone completes an action–like placing an order. In that case the amount you’re paid is called cost per action (CPA).

    You can find more info by starting at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_per_mille.

    Comment by Michael L. — April 15, 2008 @ 2:29 pm

  12. Maybe you can add some more example places to get advertiser, thanks!

    Comment by Hans — April 29, 2008 @ 9:13 am

  13. I always thought CPM was Cost Per Million. If you were to advertise with MySpace, they charge you per displayed ad (or impression). So for $3000 USD you get 1,000,000 impressions. Meaning… it costs you $0.003 (3/10th of a cent) per displayed ad.

    Comment by Warren Demontague — May 8, 2008 @ 1:36 pm

  14. Google’s methods may be different considering that they are serving up mostly text-based ads, often several at a time. So their method is perhaps somewhere in between the definition of CPC and CPM. Just a thought.

    Comment by jake — May 9, 2008 @ 10:30 pm

  15. there is a new way of displaying ads called behavior targeting,anyone knows about it?

    Comment by kurt — May 16, 2008 @ 6:01 am

  16. Just fyi, CPM means Cost Per Thousand. (not million). CPM is an abbreviation that has been around for years in the print and direct mail industry, and in many other industries.
    cheers, Karen

    Comment by kare — May 18, 2008 @ 7:38 pm

  17. online paid survey review…

    A great post, I learned a lot from it….

    Trackback by online paid survey review — May 29, 2008 @ 1:23 pm

  18. is there a place which compares product like Google AdManager, or YPN etc with the OpenX hosted solution? Specially given that both these solutions are not yet available to larger audience.

    Comment by FPGA & CPLD — June 10, 2008 @ 2:11 am

  19. [...] years I’ve been using a program called openx to server ads on my network of sites… hundreds, even thousands of websites served by a free [...]

    Pingback by create your own ad serving network with openx — June 11, 2008 @ 8:44 pm

  20. O.K This is a nice post and replies the same. In a few words this is a better solution than just have Google Adsense or not? Can someone answer that simple question? Thanks.

    Comment by Demmy — June 17, 2008 @ 5:04 pm

  21. Google Adsense is a great way to quickly and easily start making money from your site. Many OpenX publishers start off by just running Google Adsense, but after a while start using OpenX when they want to start being more sophisticated about their ad serving. For example, they may want to:

    (i) start serving house ads or campaigns from direct advertisers as well as Google Adsense
    (ii) experiment with affiliate campaigns
    (iii) experiment with other ad networks, and compare the revenue they make from those ad networks with that that they make using Google Adsense.

    OpenX makes it easier to manage campaigns from multiple sources, and track the success of their campaigns. However, if you only intend to run Google Adsense ads on your site, and that’s working great for you, then there’s not currently much reason to run Adsense through OpenX rather than on your site directly.

    Comment by Yali Sassoon — June 18, 2008 @ 9:04 am

  22. The presentation was not bad at all…could have been a little more descriptive.

    Comment by Online Marketing India — July 23, 2008 @ 9:54 am

  23. Thanks, we’re interested in doing more presentations. What would you like us to cover next?

    cheers, Oliver

    Comment by Oliver George — July 26, 2008 @ 5:34 pm

  24. Oliver, thanks for asking.

    I’m primarily interested in direct advertising, and I haven’t seen much content on this topic, especially for noobs. My news blog is community focused (an affluent big city suburb of 50,000), and the local traffic is of most interest to local or regional businesses, not national advertisers (the revenue from Google ads doesn’t justify the space used).

    Can you help me understand how I can explain the benefit of a particular OpenX feature to a prospective advertiser? When is a text ad better than a banner? Conversely, I need to know how to make the connection between the needs of a local merchant and the capabilities of your platform. For example, what kind of ad & placement makes most sense for a merchant to buy (and for me to set up) to promote a weekend sale?

    ‘Case studies’ or simple examples would be very helpful, explained from the perspective of both the publisher and advertiser.

    Thanks,

    Craig.

    Comment by cfcook76 — August 10, 2008 @ 5:11 am

  25. Hi Craig

    You’ve raised some good questions here but, as you know, they are difficult ones to answer. I agree that some case studies will be helpful here, we’re working on some now.

    Can anyone here share their experiences with Craig?

    cheers, Oliver

    Comment by Oliver George — August 10, 2008 @ 8:57 am

  26. Interesting and surprising. I would have expected a little more beef in the presentation. But at least it makes me realize that my understanding of online advertising isn’t completely crazy. If there was one thing to make this simple presentation better, I’d say define what CPM, CPC, and CPA actually stand for.

    Comment by Tess Soroka — August 19, 2008 @ 4:37 pm

  27. Thanks Tess, I think you are right. We could write a presentation on the different ways advertising is measured and why. For your reference:

    CPM is cost per 1000 impressions. For example, if someone pays you $1000 to display 1,000,000 ads then you are being paid at a rate of $1 CPM.

    CPC is cost per click. For example, an advertiser might want to pay for each lead you give them so you are paid on based on how many of your visitors click on the ad.

    CPA is cost per acquisition. For example, if a merchant wants to pay you based on how much revenue they make from a lead you send you might agree to be paid for each sale. This could be calculated different ways including a fixed fee or as a percentage of the sale value.

    I hope that helps.

    cheers, Oliver

    Comment by Oliver George — August 20, 2008 @ 6:44 am

  28. free advertising on our very large network of three websites our biggest one is posted above for regular advertising for job ads http://tbcjobs.webs.com

    Comment by CEO Marketplace — October 6, 2008 @ 5:43 am

  29. we find the introduction of online advertising

    Comment by roehl — November 14, 2008 @ 8:25 am

  30. The intro was quite helpful. Is there a tool similiar to Google Adsense Preview Tool for checking ads after deployment?

    Thanks,
    Patrick

    Comment by Patrick Corby — December 3, 2008 @ 9:16 pm

  31. [...] website. Yes, you can sell advertising space on your website by using some special software called OpenX. And, it’s [...]

    Pingback by Create Your Own Network Marketing Internet Business With OpenX — December 4, 2009 @ 10:33 pm

  32. Oh it’s really nice blog about internet advertising. Online marketing is really gaining rapid popularity. To promote our site or product we have to do advertising so that people should know about it. Even i used to promote my site and sell my product online through full service ad and my business is really growing. I agree that Online marketing doesn’t mean only traffic but it means targeted and quality traffic.

    Comment by Cristino — December 30, 2009 @ 9:46 am

  33. Different strategies to introduce your product. Internet is one of the fastest same as giving flyers and brochures

    Comment by color copies — January 15, 2010 @ 6:24 am

  34. The paid advertising field seems to be changing rapidly. For example, Google Adwords revenues are way down, and the click thru rates on paid ads are very low.

    Seems users are getting smart to Internet marketing and it’s creating a huge need for new Internet marketing tools that actually work.

    Web traffic is always an issue and so many people have questions about how to get it–paid advertising, interestingly, seems to be declining in value despite this.

    Comment by Brett Ingram, the Internet Marketing Tools Guy — August 2, 2010 @ 4:48 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment