Category: Internet Marketing

_This article is by guest contributor Karel Wegert._
Over the past several years, I have been running a variety of online ad campaigns across industry specific Web sites. Because my company was selling what might loosely be defined as a niche product, specifically automotive accessories, I was immediately drawn to online communities and subject-specific message forums because they could put us in touch with our target market much more easily.
After running banners consistently across a core group of 20 to 30 sites, we were garnering a good average weekly click-through rate. In an attempt to reach an even broader market, however, we began looking at some of the larger sites that are run by industry-specific magazines. Naturally, we encountered a major difference. As is the standard in the industry, the magazine sites were selling ads on a CPM basis. The vast majority of the Web community sites we had purchased media from sold their placements for a flat fee; each creative would be displayed an equal number of times per month, with no limit to the overall number of impressions delivered. So we were eager to see what kind of results the magazines’ CPM-approach would yield.