Pay-per-impression ads refer to banner ads that generate
revenue when visitors come to a site. A website
owner is compensated for the simple fact that the ad is
displayed on his/her site when a visitor comes. As
this method of advertisement is based on the number of
views, website owners can rely on it as a steady source
of income, although compensation per view is relatively
low. Also, it is important to mention that a
website owner is only compensated when there is a "paid
view," meaning that there is actually an ad displayed.
When there are no ads displayed, those views are
commonly referred to as "default views" and generate no
revenue.
The main
pay-per-impression programs are:
Tribal Fusion
ValueClick Media
Burst
Media
Casale Media
There are
other pay-per-impression programs, but they tend to
have a very exclusive membership based on very high
traffic volume.
Ad Filtering
Intermediaries that offer pay-per-impression ads often
offer a wide selection of them, meaning that you are
bound to have junk ads appear on your site. A good
idea is to use the filter options that are made
available to filter out the categories of ads that you
don't want to show on your site. If you are
running a credible website, ads that you may want to
filter out are typically:
ads that
have too much animation;
ads that
promote violence or sensitive subject matters;
competitive ads;
or
ads that
simply do not relate to the theme of your site.
* Some people
views advertisements as adding to the content of a site.
That position is justifiable if the ad is theme-related
and offers a useful product or service.
Pop-Ups
Pay-per-impression intermediaries also offer pop-up ads.
These ads are intrusive as they pop-up when people land
on a site or leave a site. If you run a credible
website, it is not recommended that you display these
ads, although it may be tempting. Good Web
development is about striking a balance between making
money and providing a good user experience.
Recommended
Pay-Per-Impression Programs
Tribal Fusion
Tribal fusion
offers a first-tier pay-per-impression program.
They restrict entry into their program to websites that
have a minimum of 2,000 unique visitors per day, a credible layout
and an active user base.
Burst Media
Burst
Media is a second-tier pay-per-impression program.
It is on the high end of second-tier programs however as
most of its advertisers are established businesses.
It offers advertisers the option of choosing to
advertise on specific sites. If an advertiser
chooses that option, the rate will be much higher.
Hence, another reason to maintain a credible site so
that big businesses will want to advertise on your site.
ValueClick Media and Casale Media
ValueClick
Media and Casale Media are second-tier
pay-per-impression programs. They
offer a good selection of ads and can be used to fill-up
the gaps left by other programs.
Tips to Optimize
Performance of Pay-Per-Impression Programs
Following
are some basic tips to improve the performance of
pay-per-impression programs:
Increase your traffic... this is an obvious one.
Increase your traffic from targeted geographical
locations (such as the
United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia).
Advertisers target their audiences and will exclude
audiences that are irrelevant to them or will pay
more for a more relevant audience.
Choose
your pay-per-impression program and give priority to
the ones that pay more. This may sound
obvious, but many people only choose one program
whereas they could have chosen many and ranked them
in priority order to utilize all their impressions.
Maintain a
professional look and feel to your site. Some
advertisers
choose to run their campaigns only on specific sites.
Those programs tend to have a higher CPM. A
professional look is also important to be accepted
in the big league. Unless your site is
credible, you will not be accepted in those programs
that pride themselves as having a good base of
"leading-edge" or "professional" websites.
Maximize
the ad units on each page of your site. Try to
put 3 ad units per page. That will roughly
triple your earnings. To be able to put 3 ad
units without affecting the credibility of your
site, however, you will need to rework the layout of
each page to reach a good balance between content
and advertising.
Filter
out the bad ads. You will sometimes be asked
to play gambling ads or violent ads. You may
choose to run those ads, but some other advertisers
may not like that and may disregard your site on
that basis.