For branding, it appears that advertising on Content Sites is 21% more effective than on Portals and through Ad Networks. This seams like good news, as the consolidation of Traffic on the Internet has undermined the small is beautiful of the gold rush era. An advertiser needing to spend a $1,000,000 budget doesn’t have the ability to cherry pick places to spend ads without spending expensive employee resources finding sites, but a niche player looking to advertise can identify where their traffic is and has an edge.
Portals and Ad Networks generally charge higher CPM rates for apparently inferior results. This ought to give hope to independents that targetted advertisement can give results. Let the big guys spent $8 CPM running ads across networks, you can get 21% more effective results at $3-$4 CPM rates, and the local content players will be thrilled compared to the $1-$2 they get through the networks… it’s not that networks take a 75%, they take a 25%-50% cut and then don’t sell the inventory.
And if you like developing unique content, don’t despair, your advertising inventory is increasing in value!