Universal McCann Projects 25% Growth In Internet Advertising Revenues For '06
August 3, 2006
Communications giant, Universal McCann, (formerly McCann-Erikson), released its projections for online ad revenues for the upcoming year and web site owners should take notice.
Universal McCann projects online ad revenues to increase by 25% over the next 12 months. That’s going to add another $1 billion in spending each quarter according to the Internet Advertising Bureau which reported 1st Q ‘06 ad revenues at $4 billion. And, as good as those numbers are, they don’t reveal the whole picture.
Senior Analyst at eMarketer.com, David Hallerman, points out that the numbers above don’t include paid search ad spending. According to Hallerman, paid search marketing is growing even faster than other promotion vehicles, increasing 84% in 1st Q ’06 compared to the 1st Q of ’05. That means that programs like Google’s Adsense are growing at a phenomenal rate. And that’s why shares of Google have risen sharply over the past 24 months. It’s a veritable cash machine!
Are You Getting Your Share?
$20 billion dollars a year will be spent on Internet advertising. That includes everything from banner ads and PPC to affiliate adverts that generate great passive income. No extra work on your part.
Many new site owners don’t recognize (or utilize) the expansive capabilities their sites have to generate income. Many commercial sites rely on product sales alone as the sole revenue source. If that’s you, keep reading. You should be getting your slice of that tasty, $20 billion ad revenue pie. Yum.
Paid Search Income
Google’s Adsense is extremely popular and Yahoo’s paid search listings are the major source of that company’s annual reported revenues. There are two important reasons for the remarkable growth of paid search advertising. One, it works. Two, even site owners with microscopic promo budgets can take advantage of this form of marketing.
When you enroll in the Google Adsense program, contextual adverts will be placed on your web site. You’ve seen them – Ads by Goooogle. They’re everywhere. Google’s contextual ads are links of interest to your site visitors. So, if you sell sports gear, the Adsense links placed on your site will somehow be related to sports.
And (this is the good part) every time one of your visitors clicks on one of these links, you make money. And those nickels per click add up quickly. The owner of one highly-ranked site for pregnant moms and dads reports Adsense revenues of $60 to $90 a day!
Let’s lowball this example and assume that this popular site generates $60 a day in Adsense revenues. That adds up to $1,800 a month or $21,600 annually in Adsense revenue alone! Granted, this is a very popular site, but it’s certainly useful in demonstrating the potential of paid search advertising to boost your bottom line. And, as a bonus, the ad links placed by Google provide useful paths for your site visitors to further their searches.
Banners
There are companies that will rent pixels on your home page – links to their sites. Banner ads aren’t as popular as they once were for a couple of reasons. The click-through rate for banners is around 1% - a pretty small ROI. Second, banners that don’t jibe with the content of your site make search engine spiders a little nervous. So, if you have a site that sells gift baskets with a big banner selling quick lubes for cars, spiders may become confused about the purpose and classification of your site. And that could cost you some page rank (PR) points.
If you do accept banners, they’ll appear at the top of your home page – prime real estate within your site. It’s the first thing visitors see upon arrival. You have to decide if that space could be put to better use highlighting new products or announcing an upcoming sale, for example.
Banners are sometimes called placed adverts because they’re placed by ad agencies and other site owners for a price.
Affiliate Links
Perhaps the most exciting segment of online advertising is the placement of affiliate links on your homepage and throughout your site.
There are plenty of companies – from Subaru to Ernie’s Tire Emporium – that will pay you for the placement of small, graphics ads on your site. Once you’ve signed up to become an affiliate, you’re given a string of HTML code to add to your site’s code to identify the source of visitor traffic that comes through your site.
In the case of affiliate programs, site owners aren’t paid on a per click basis. Instead, each company develops its own affiliate program with contractual terms. In all cases, the visitor who clicks through your site must perform the MDA – the most desired action - which is clearly laid out in the affiliate agreement.
Sometimes, the MDA is to make a purchase. In this case, affiliates (you) often receive a percentage of the total purchase. In some cases, the customer remains ‘yours’ even on return visits.
In other cases, the MDA is the completion of some action – completing a form, entering an email address or opting in for a monthly newsletter. In these instances, the site owner receives a stipulated amount, again clearly stated in the affiliate agreement, for every MDA performed through the owner’s site.
Right now, eBay is paying between $12 and $22 for every new sign up who clicks the eBay link on your site. Plus, you’ll receive anywhere between 40% and 60% of eBay’s revenues generated by your sign ups. In very little time that one link alone can generate significant, regular, passive income. You don’t do anything except sign on as an affiliate.
The rest is handled by Commission Junction which lists companies large and small interested in linking to your site. Commission Junction is a great place to find affiliates that are a good fit for your site. Again, choose affiliates that have something to do with the products or services you sell. It’s helpful to visitors and to SE spiders. CJ is also a terrific site for learning more about online advertising resources and paid search opportunities that’ll boost your income.
Use Your Web Site To Full Advantage
If your only source of site revenue is direct sales you’re selling yourself short. There are plenty of ways to develop additional revenue sources using your web site and the expanding influence of Internet marketing.
Think about it. In the past 12 months, advertising expenditures within traditional media outlets rose 2.8%. Compare that to the 25% increase in I-net advertising revenues and the 84% growth in paid search outlays.
Companies and businesses want to use a small piece of your site and they’re willing to pay for it. So take advantage of all your web site has to offer and get your slice of that $20 billion ad revenue pie.
Copyright 2006 © Website Source, Inc.
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