Now that WatchMojo.com is growing and our syndication network is off the chart… we’re getting a lot of advertising inquiries. Most of it is small and medium-sized advertisers, a few of them are big ad agencies submitting RFPs.

With ad agencies, it’s usually for big branded advertisers, but even these have specific objectives with regards to signups, sales or what not. Once in a while, you will get lucky and get pure-branding deals… but online, those are rare.

Measurability = Good; Impatience = Bad

Those are rare, frankly, because we online salespeople are the big fat idiots who have been promoting the measurability of online media.

We’ve set out the sword and fall on it every day because suddenly, whereas outdoor, print, radio and TV advertising has always been a long term exercise, suddenly marketers were led to believe that online could be a short term exercise. This was a cardinal mistake that we did. We did this initially to get marketers attention, but it’s not too late to retrain marketers into accepting the truth:

You Can’t Handle The Truth!

NO marketing provides a short term payoff. None. It takes years for marketers to harness strategies and optimize campaigns before they can plan for campaigns and allocate budgets in an effective manner.

Goodwill = Value of Brand, Basically

In fact, back in business school, one of my marketing profs said “Coca Cola can stop advertising and not see any impact on their market share, but by the second year, they sure will”. I think he is right. Online, I have never embraced the CPA or CPC model. Google embraced the CPC model and rode it to billions. But they had to given the tough ad climate in which theu launched Ad Sense.

CPM, CPA, CPC

As an ad salesman, I always favored CPM pricing models. Obviously, advertisers favor CPA and publishers prefer CPM. I think those publishers who can sell on a CPM can dictate terms and only take on CPM deals, those who can’t have no choice and accept CPA.

At my old job I sold $10M worth of ads in a very tough ad climate by putting my foot down and drawing a line in the sand. Had I accepted every CPA deal that came in the door, I don’t think we would have sold as much revenue. I know, CPA is ongoing, recurring, blah-blah, BS. In my opinion, 1 out of 100 CPA campaign is worth it, the rest are not. When the marketer is not taking on any risk, they don’t put in the time to improve the message, their landing page, the product, etc. They ask publishers to “give it a try”. Why?

Real Risk Sharing

My thinking is as follows:

Out of principle alone, I think advertisers should take some risk, too. It’s unfair and reasonable for marketers - who need to spend on marketing (advertising, PR, etc.) - to ask publishers to take on all of the risk and accept CPA deals. It’s expensive to create content and build an audience. If you want to reach my audience, you should pay for that privilege, no?

If after you take that risk we realize there is a fit between our audience and your product and your marketing message, then we might consider a CPA deal. Why should it be the other way around? When a CPA “advertiser” insists, I tell them to go advertise on social networking sites where the only content is user-generated-crap. If they want to advertise alongside professional content, then they should take on some risk.

People, Stop Lying

I understand there’s a greater problem and that is dishonest salespeople. Every marketer tells me horror stories of salespeople who promise X and Y and don’t deliver, only to give a “hey, shit happens” answer afterwards. This is shameful and representative of the culture we live in where everyone is out for the quick buck. It’s also why I tell my salesmen not to lie. Tell marketers the truth: if you want to build a business, you need to promote, that costs money. It costs me to produce content.

Time is Money

Bear one thing in mind: any time I take on a client, there’s a lot of work on our end. Reaching deal terms and implementing campaigns is a timely process. Optimizing campaigns even more so. All in all, a publisher should be compensated for that alone. Again, the problem is too many ad sales people lie and mislead marketers into thinking campaigns will be slam dunks. I tell them truth: campaigns are hard, marketing messages are everywhere and the truth is: I don’t care how great your products and services are, users find marketing annoying and obtrusive. Plain and simple. You are interrupting the informational and educational content consumption process… a process which online is in a free, ad-supported environment.

What I like to ask those promoters of CPA programs is “would you work for free, only to be compensated when a sale takes place?” I doubt it, and I hope not.

Long story short, I am not knocking the entire affiliate marketing industry here. I think some of the best marketing campaigns come from that segment of the online media space. However, if we all take a step back and wonder why online video sales are not yet booming etc., maybe, just maybe, it’s that content creators are not being rewarded for the time and effort to create good content.

The Adman’s Manifesto

It’s a catch-22… but to solve it, the steps are simple:

1. Don’t lie to marketers: don’t hype results and manage their expectations.

2. Be candid with advertisers: you have to spend to advertise, there are no free lunches.

3. Stand up to protect your inventory.

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