By Brent Applegate
Content-targeted ads gain mindshare from your target audience when they are reading relevant on-line editorial content. For example, while reading an article on CNET News about servers, a potential customer might see related white papers at the end of the article as additional resources. Well-informed white paper advertisers are leveraging the power of content-targeted ads to better promote their papers. While the playing field for content-targeted white papers ads is still evolving, this article will help you to make sense of the options.
Single-Site Promotions
The simplest place to start advertising your white paper is at a popular industry news site. Although not all on-line publications offer content-targeted advertising and many do not specialize in white paper advertising, there are still plenty of options. The process traditionally involves picking your favorite IT content site, choosing the categories that best describe your paper, paying a fee and watching the impressions roll in.
InfoWorld, E-Week, TechTarget and others have utilized this approach. For example, the InfoWorld program costs $4000 per month for a guaranteed minimum of 500,000 impressions.
Single-site promotions are easy to set up and provide a focused presentation of your paper to a very refined audience. However, single-site promotions do not provide registration services or lead tracking.
CNET Network
A bit higher up the food chain, we encounter CNET’s IT Papers. Their service provides an option to contextually present white papers throughout CNET network properties. Peter Spande of CNET marketing notes, “We have built persistent contextual integration on News.com, ZDNet, TechRepublic and Builder.com so that a user on any of those properties will receive focused contextual white paper referrals on almost every editorial page.”
Uniquely, CNET provides registered lead reports to advertisers for follow-up. It takes 2 to 4 clicks to register and read a paper, which is a nice feature to protect advertisers from casual surfers. Pricing begins as low as $1000 per month and is determined by the volume of traffic requested, the number of papers promoted and the duration of the promotion. Large-scale campaigns can run 6 to 7 figures annually. Unfortunately, advertisers must depend on producers at CNET to determine appropriate category placement for white papers; however, a paper can be limited to a specific CNET property.
I am most impressed with the prominent placement given to white papers on CNET sites. CNET’s IT Papers is a strong provider due to their depth of content, tight integration and commitment to white papers as an integral part of their editorial offerings.
IndustryBrains Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
IndustryBrains has carved out an impressive niche with PPC ads for white papers. IndustryBrains offers auction-based, content-targeted ads in marketplace listing sections that appear on publication sites such as ComputerWorld, InfoWorld and Ziff Davis publications.
Bid prices for ad placement vary considerably from a low of 50 cents per click to $12 or more per click. The top five bidders for each site-specific category appear below relevant articles. It is worth noting that your ad may compete for clicks against a publisher’s “new white papers” box.
IndustryBrains is purely a PPC business and does not offer any user registration, screening or lead management services. David Setzer of VirtualConnect has used IndustryBrains content-targeted ads to direct readers to its Mailprotector product and white paper. Setzer likes the low up-front cost and tight control over placement that IndustryBrains provides.
Closing Comments
Each model has its unique strengths. Single-site promotions from on-line properties such as InfoWorld are easy to set up and provide great exposure, although to a narrow spectrum of readers. The breadth and depth of CNET’s service leverages an entire network. Lastly, IndustryBrains offers low up-front costs and the ability to try out categories for content-targeted ads with limited risk.
I am the most impressed by CNET. They offer the most prominent placement of white papers, have a variety of offerings that attracts the serious buyers, and show a consistent and ongoing commitment to the most robust integration of white paper listings and relevant editorial content. Content-targeted ads are also a great way to get your paper in front of just the right reader at just the right moment.
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