The Print Observer – Newspaper & Magazine Advertising Insights
Newspaper and magazine advertising insights, commentary and analysis.
If you’re a publisher or advertising executive new to performance print advertising – or would like a refresh on how MediaBids works – this video provides a short overview of how MediaBids will deliver ads from top brands + additional revenue to your publication.
Creating a MediaBids account for your publication is free and easy. If you have questions or need assistance, please feel free to call us at 1-800-545-1135 or email info@mediabids.com.
So, you are running ads from Mediabids in your publication but your response is not what you had hoped? This is a frustrating problem, but there are some steps we can take to try to correct things.
First, ask yourself if the product or service being advertised is really a good fit for your readership. Sometimes publications choose ads from Mediabids because they like the payout, or like how the ad looks but are not paying attention to the single most important thing, which is do your readers want what is being advertised? There are several things to consider – is the price something that they can afford? Is the product or service being advertised relevant to your area and your readership’s needs? Generac Home Generators is a great campaign, but if your publication is in an area where the power never goes out, it probably won’t do very well.
Second, are there other parts of your publication where you can use the ad? Different people seek different types of content and it might be worthwhile to try the ad in a place where a different group of people, who are more likely to respond, might be looking. Classified sections, a TMC product, or on your website are all examples of sections within your publication that attract distinct audiences.
If you feel confident that the ad is right for your audience and it still is not getting results, then we have a different type of problem and the answer might be trying a different campaign. It is ok to switch campaigns and not every ad works in every publication, sometimes for reasons that are very hard to identify. By changing the ads you are running and observing the results that they generate, you can better identify what resonates with your audience. So to do this effectively – watch the weekly reports of your results that Mediabids sends and then at the end of the month, review your results carefully. If you are running an ad and it isn’t working, let’s try something different. The goal of Mediabids’ program is to make your publication money.
If you would like suggestions or to review the ads you are currently running, please contact us at www.MediaBids.com or 860-379-9602.
Our local news media businesses and organizations sit at the crossroads of pretty much everything that make our communities work.
Our local newspapers provide a place for local business to advertise to their local customers. Our papers cover local government and politics and help to keep citizens informed. Without our local papers there’s almost no transparency, citizenship is stymied, the credibility and authority of our local governments is undermined. This all means healthy local news organizations are a necessary prerequisite for strong local economies, thriving communities and local democracy.
Local news was struggling with competitive pressures well before the pandemic. But since March and the sudden and massive decline in local advertising dollars, many local newspapers are barely hanging on. This is why the ”Local Journalism Sustainability Act” is an important attempt at supporting local news orgs and better local journalism. Please link to more info about this proposed legislation here. Also, call the U.S. Congress switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Congressperson. Don’t know who represents you? Click this lookup page. Then make the call. Do it today!
As we all know the COVID crisis has had enormous impacts on our lives and on the economy. Newspapers have been especially hard hit among the many industries that saw a large number of their customers disappear virtually overnight. Once again people were declaring print media dead and perhaps buried this time.
But since the COVID shut downs began we’ve seen a really strong surge of ad placements and consumer response. Several advertisers that have done particularly well have done so in part because of the pandemic – OMAHA STEAKS, LEAF FILTER, ADT SECURITY, AT&T TV AND OTHERS. In fact, April response was up by 35% over March. May response was up another 36% over April. June is currently running another 17% ahead of May. These are very strong month-over-month increases. So at Mediabids we’ve seen anything but the notion that print media is dead and it’s certainly not buried.
Need a little more convincing? Understandable. An article appeared at Forbes.com today, highlighting how suddenly there are more marketers using full-page, print ads. This isn’t that surprising really. Newspapers have long been a place where marketers go to say something, especially if what they are saying is a little weightier or requires more space. These are complicated and challenging times. Print ads are unique in their ability to capture reader’s attention and say more rather than less (or nothing at all.) So it stands to reason marketers are once again turning to print (and newspapers in particular) to talk to consumers. To read the full article click here.
”Long copy sells more than short copy.” -John Caples, VP- BBDO
For more info about response-based print advertising and the campaigns to start running now, please visit Mediabids.com or email Jim at jjinks@mediabids.com.
Crown Maple is artisan quality, estate-grown maple syrup from Madava Farms and 800-acre organic, family farm, established in 2010 in New York’s Hudson Valley. In addition to maple syrup, their product line-up includes maple sugar, maple-infused condiments, maple-flavored snacks and craft beverages with Crown Maple.
This holiday season Crown Maple is offering three special gift options, each at 25% off! The three options include the ”Pancake Breakfast Gift Set,” the ”Bourbon Barrell Aged Organic Maple Syrup” and ”Infused Organic Maple Syrup Trio.” Customers can buy one or all three. Shipping and handling is only $5 per item. These are great gifts and a good value. Perfect for giving this holiday season to family, friends and associates.
We have display ads and a classified liner ad for this campaign. The ads are available in both color and BW. Visit Mediabids.com or call us at 1-800-545-1135 for more information and to request your Crown Maple ad today.
PRESS RELEASE
MEDIABIDS ANNOUNCES OVER 1,000 HOLIDAY AD PLACEMENTS & COUNTING
Winsted, November 13, 2019 – This year marks the beginning of Mediabids’ second decade of being a leader in national print advertisers, on a performance-basis. Since 2008 Mediabids has generated nearly 5 million phone calls for hundreds of consumer-facing, direct-response advertisers. Mediabids has newspaper and regional magazine affiliate-partners nationwide and currently more than fifty different advertisers delivering print revenue. These advertisers believe in the quality leads and customer relationships that can only be activated through print media platforms and they want to be in more publications.
For the 2019 holiday season, Mediabids is offering six great gift advertisers. Omaha Steaks is back for the eleventh year. After Father’s Day, the holiday season is the second best time of year for Omaha Steaks sales. Hale Groves, Pittman & Davis and Crown Maple are back again this year as well. Finally, rounding out our roster of 2019 holiday season advertisers are Fairytale Brownies and Nueskes. Visit http://unbouncepages.com/holiday-ads-2019/ to see the ads and consumer offers.
Through November 12th, we’ve already exceeded 1,000 holiday ad placements. Our strongest season yet and still a month to go! Visit http://www.mediabids.com to view all our holiday ads and request yours today. We have the ads in all sizes and in color as well as black and white (including a classified liner ad for several holiday campaigns.) If you don’t already have an account at mediabids.com registering is quick and free of charge.
Contact:
Jim Jinks
VP, Business Development
jjinks@mediabids.com
What a difference a year can make!
Over the past year something really notable and exciting has happened in response-based, national, print advertising. Per response payouts have gone up A LOT and more and better advertisers are moving into the industry.
In October 2018, among our set of advertisers, the average payout per response was $18.00. One year later the overall average has gone up to $27.00 – a 50% increase! But this isn’t even the most notable change year-over-year.
In October 2018, among our top ten highest payouts, the average payout per response was $46.00. One year later, the average payout per response, among our top ten highest paying advertisers is now pushing toward $100. The average is up 80% from one year ago and is now at $83 per response.
Our highest paying advertiser is now at $175 per qualified response. One year ago our highest paying advertiser was $100 per qualified response. That advertiser has since gone up to $115 per qualified response but this year-over-year increase is 75%. These trends are great for the industry and especially for publishers.
A big part of our role at Mediabids is to prove to advertisers what we’ve known for years – leads from print readers are the highest quality leads in direct-response advertising. Full stop. Print readers are more informed and thus are further down the conversion funnel, once they pick-up the phone to call an advertiser. These higher payouts from advertisers is proof that they’re finally getting the message and more importantly, seeing the results. As such we anticipate we’ll continue to see more advertisers be more aggressive with their per response payouts. In other words we don’t see these higher payouts as an inflation bubble that’ll burst. We expect to see payout continue to gradually move up across most verticals in national, per response, print advertising.
Current highest paying advertisers at Mediabids:
Shelf Genie
American Standard Walk Ins
LeafFilter
Andersen by Renewal
ADT Security
Acorn Stairlifts
MobileHelp
The Hartford-AARP
World Health Link
A Place for Mom
Visit www.Mediabids.com to view the ads for all of our campaigns, including the new Holiday 2019 campaigns we’ve just posted – Omaha Steaks, Hale Groves, Fairytale Brownies and others.
For ecommerce and direct-to-consumer advertisers and marketing managers, we know there’s no shortage of metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ponder and occupy our time.
Close or Conversion Rate
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Click Thru Rate (CTR)
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Abandonment Rate
Cost Per Thousand (CPM)
Ad Cost/Conversion (ACoS)
Lifetime Value (LTV)
Pay Per Click (PPC)
The majority of these metrics or KPIs are online or ecommerce focused, of course. As we all know, marketing dollars have increasingly gravitated toward digital media in large part due to its measurability. But at Mediabids we specialize in lead generation via print publications and platforms. In other words, we bring ecommerce-like metrics to offline commerce.
Several of the KPIs in our industry -performance-based print advertising- are just like those in digital marketing; namely LTV, CPA and conversion rate to name a few. But our ”click” is an actual customer call and our ”conversion” refers to a customer call being long enough to be a ”qualified call” – meaning the customer is normally speaking with the advertiser’s call center for one-minute or longer. We use unique phone numbers and URLs to track response to our client’s advertising. Whereas the heart of digital media is pay per click (PPC), the core of our industry is pay per call (PPCall.)
Many may be surprised (or not) to know that Amazon has emerged as one of the largest pay per click platforms in digital advertising. Amazon.com adds campaigns and new consumers every day. In fact, Amazon merchants currently enjoy a 10% average conversion rate -the highest in PPC advertising, so more and more advertisers are moving budget from Google and Facebook to Amazon PPC.
This got us thinking. How does Mediabids’ pay per call advertising compare with the industry leading pay per click platform? How does PPC compare to PPCall?
The following Amazon stats come from a recent PPC Den Podcast [”Amazon PPC Advertising Stats”] done by the guys at Adbadger.com. Click the link to check it out. The Mediabids PPCall stats are directly from our platform.
So there you have it – PPC vs. PPCall. PPClick will generate a higher volume of activity (though less efficient) but the conversion and cost metrics are more similar with PPCall than not.
Contributor: Jim Jinks
It’s time for your publication to set its sights on the New Year! January is prime time for your readers to make purchases that will help them stick to their New Year’s Resolutions.
MediaBids has advertisers that are a great fit for a better 2017. We’ll make the ads to your specs, and you will earn revenue when readers respond. Here’s just a few ads to consider:
TBX Smoking Cessation – TBX offers a unique system to help people quit smoking.
BistroMD – BistroMD offers print readers a special discount to try its special weight-loss program.
Physician’s Mutual Dental Insurance – No one likes going to the dentist but preventative care now can save money later. Physician’s Mutual provides dental insurance and specializes in helping people 50+.
Final Expense Direct Life Insurance – It’s something no one likes to talk about, but life insurance is essential. 2017 is a great time for your readers to secure their loved ones future.
To view the full list of MediaBids advertisers an offers, click here to login to your account. Call us at 860-379-9602 with any questions.
The Print Observer - Newspaper & Magazine Advertising Insights 