Gawker
This morning is Superbowl Day for the web. The Apple Macworld Keynote starts at 9 Pacific, and already tech blogs like Gawker Media's Gizmodo are clocking pageviews like mad as everyone refreshes for news of Apple's latest announcement (this year the guess is an ultralight Mac laptop). It's a scheduled event with a guaranteed boost; last year Gizmodo and competitor Engadget earned four times their normal visitors (and ten times the pageviews), with Engadget breaking 10 million page views thanks to a boost from AOL. I thought ad money would be rolling in for these promised pageviews, but publisher Nick Denton explains why ad sales don't jump today:
[UPDATE: DoubleClick VP Jonathan Bellack explains in the comments how his ad company will make Gawker loads of money next time.]
Apple Day is a loss-leader. Amazingly, the forecasting systems built into DART [Doubleclick's ad serving system] calculate available inventory by looking at trends, and weekly patterns. They can't take account of the fact that, a year ago, there was a spike at the same time. I guess trafficking experts can make a bit of an allowance. Assume that January is going to be above the DART forecast, and allow for more sales that could normally be satisfied.Anyway, bottom line. We will do a multiple of normal traffic. Maybe 3-4x as much. Higher bandwidth costs. But no compensating advertising. Still, need to do it because these are the events that define how well the site is competing...As the Superbowl is to TV, and elections are to cable news, so Jobsnote is to the web. It's like a supernova of web traffic, that can briefly outshine all the other stars in the galaxy put together.
To clarify: Advertisers buy bulk sets of impressions: One hundred thousand views, for example. In that bulk manner, ad teams sell up to 80% of their normal monthly inventory (usually a lot less, part of why you see "Gawker Artist" banners on this network and cheap Google ads on others). You forecast traffic based on the previous months and not on the same month one year ago, since a healthy blog grows a lot in a year. Doubleclick's ad system apparently isn't sophisticated enough to also factor in an annual January spike. Thus you have a bunch of extra pageviews today, and no extra sold ads to fill them with.
Comments
Do. Want.
Lawson, should I be taking notes here? -JDel
@theSiXy: Hah! Hi. Yes. Absolutely yes.
Nerrrrrds!
I don't understand. Are you saying that actual ads served aren't ever accounted for—and that advertisers are only guaranteed their numbers based on a projection of traffic?
As a media planner with a CE client, I find this very sad. Forget DART, we don't make all decisions based on it. A good planner would know to run anyway.
(Yaaawnnn)
2004-ish: Right, let's sort out this ad problem guys! Macs at the ready?
2008: Oops. Apple Day just comes round earlier and earlier every year!
@pufflehuff: I'm looking around the room for the camera, but I can't see it anywhere.......
I know that it's an overused meme on this site, but in this case it really is apt: "too insidery."
@pufflehuff: Wow. Was everyone ever really so young?
What is really amazing to me is that I sense a trend between the advertising on this site, and those receiving commentary here. For instance, the other day, Anthony Bourdaine was splashed everywhere on Gawker like hot topic on mall goths, and then, lo and behold, there was an anthony bourdain focused article on Gawker. Last week, it was the college humor boys, and today, lots of Collegehumor.com banners flowing across the Gawker pageviews.
I guess Julia Allison will soon be a paid advertiser, as well.
So, my prediction is: Apple banners for everyone!!!!
Whee!
@Choire: Bless. Mr Denton looks adorable! And Jess, what a hottie! (Btw, it was 2005)
Choire, if you want to reminisce a bit, it's from here: [www.nytimes.com]
@Choire: I added a graf that hopefully clarifies.
@nevin: Naturellement. I am stealth. Mwahahaha.
Nick - if this is the model, it would behoove you to get a stats guru on staff to embed in marketing. Sounds like your ad platform needs work. Given the granularity, accessibility, and format of the data outputs that Gawker provides you, this should be a no-brainer payday.
Not really sure I get it entirely, it's a complex web of interactions between your business and the ad platform, but it seems to me like the traffic projections could be much more robust.
@Nick Douglas: It still doesn't make sense. If the crack ad team knows that there will be more impressions today than the projection model indicates, then the crack ad team can call whomever wants to by Apple fanboi impressions and say, "hey, it's going to be Jobsivus, buy those awesome focused laser-like impressions!!" And people either do or they don't.
It seems that you are saying either one of two things:
1. The doubleclick software actually doesn't let you sell more ads than the projection model indicates; or
2. There just isn't enough demand.
Which is it?
I'm with thedismalscience on this. There is an opportunity here - and you need someone w/ the stats and ad sales background to take advantage of it.
@TheDismalScience: While that would be great for great days like today, I think Denton doesn't want to be on the hook for a bad day. So best to stick to averages over a greater period of time. This is my totally made up theory that I just made up right now. TV pundits should also have to say that, I also just decided right now.
This seems like a problem that could be solved with, like, computers or something.
Right now the pre-cum in the Mac fanboys' pants has dried and hardened, and the countdown to full nerd load launch has begun.
test for young mr. douglas: politely ask your boss to explain what his response means, or better yet, ask him to edit this post so it makes sense.
@pufflehuff: Why did you post a picture of a lesbian internet cafe?
I'm guessing Denton gave you this so that we'd all start reading your posts again.
@lilyb: Yeah. If Anthony Bourdain can say, "I want to take over the site on Monday, January 14th," why can't someone else pump up all their ads for Tuesday, the 15th? Seems like the real answer is "They don't want to/don't realize" rather than "They can't."
@pufflehuff: Aww! I had no idea the the Dark Lord was so twee and cherubic looking.
Yeah, the Mac Air looks great, but why can't they make it simpler for me to clean out the accumulated gunk from my optical mouse?
@Nick, TheDismalScience, and Gooperpee: Hi, this is Jonathan Bellack from DoubleClick. Digital ad forecasting is a tough problem -- like predicting the weather or the stock market, it can't be solved perfectly by any technology. For example, just because Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at last MacWorld, that doesn't mean you can count on a similar blockbuster every time.
That said, we do give customers several ways to sell against traffic spikes. Customers can enter the future traffic they expect, sell on an exclusive/rotation/sponsorship basis (instead of by quantity), or just ignore our built-in forecasts and book ads based on what they expect will happen.
We also have a major upgrade in beta right now (due out in early Feb) that will give customers a lot more power around exactly when and how to use specific pieces of past traffic as a historical basis for future forecasts.
That said, this sounds like shame on us for not getting the info out to customers like Gawker well enough. We're following up now to improve documentation and keep getting the word out.
@Steverino: I felt that it was germane to the topic at hand.
Start a discussion:
Login with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?