Monday, February 4, 2013

100 Keys to Success in Selling Advertising for Publishers


There is so much to learn about the world of advertising for publishers of content ... ALL content either is supported by advertisement or is implicitly an advertisement for the ideas embedded in the content OR and advertisement for the author of that content.  All content is basically "selling" something or asking the reader to think about something ... even if the idea being sold is essentially one that asks the reader to be a more critical thinker, to be more skeptical even of the article itself.  All content is basically selling something ... the concepts of advertising applies to all content.

The world is changing rapidly in the world of advertisement ... it might be that advertisement along with recommendation engines are becoming even more powerful and necessary.  As a result, I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to attempt to curate this list.

  1. In order to understand any topic, it is up to you to put together your own program of study to do what is necessary to become a bit of an expert ... it might seem like a paradox, but it's more like the chicken-and-egg thing ... you have to start where you are and RAPIDLY evolve and grow ... you have become a bit of an expert FIRST, so that you can find better ways to educate yourself [and so that you can seek even better training] ... this is the same in the world of advertising ... develop expertise by seeking out and listening to experts; don't waste experts time -- do your homework first so you can ask good questions but never show off, especially when you might know more about a niche topic than an expert!
  2. Develop better content and media for your advertising.  Work at improving your advertising expertise as you develop your content expertise.  Develop a daily practice to "sharpen the saw" as you build skills that reinforce your ability to successfully improve your media and content publishing at the same time that you improve your success in selling your advertisement for a higher return.
  3. As a rule, the Google AdSense advertising for publishers will generally be the standard.  But as you will also want to consider other programs such as Microsoft Ad PubCenter or the Chikita Online Ad Network or BuySellAds or the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program or any other advertising network o affiliate program for content creators and publishers.  If you are a content creator and publisher, you probably should use Facebook only about as much as you absolutely need to, to bring people back to your website, your blog, your content.  Many would say that Facebook's business model is basically about killing the revenue possibilities in publisher advertisement and programs like Google AdSense or the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program [in order to drive all social commerce to the insular Facebook universe].  Before you investigate the other alternatives, it will be worth your while to focus on just one and that best is probably AdSense; watch the AdSense videos and also the DoubleClick videos; read the AdSense forum; participate in the AdSense Academy; understand how you earn money with the whole AdSense Family ... AdSense for content (AFC), AdSense for search (AFS) AdSense for video (AFV), AdSense for games (AFG), AdSense for mobile (AFM).   Two products that you might have heard about before, AdSense for feeds (AFF) and AdSense for domains (AFD) have gone away and are not really necessary for content creators and publishers.