Webvertising

May 25, 2006 2:32 PM

I own a website that targets a certain demographic / niche, how do I get my site in front of ad agencies with campaigns that target this niche?

Is their a database advertising people use to view websites by category? Any help would be great, I'm tired of just having punch the monkey ads...

posted by matimer to technology (5 answers total)

google ads are targeted, and i use those to cover all my costs and then some.

what i do for my site (see profile) is to solicit advertisers directly - I contact firms that I have a high opinion of, who might be interested in expanding their advertising a bit, and pitch them ad space. I've had very good results this way, plus being affiliated with an advertiser you actually like/respect and who has a good reputation does wonders for readers' perception of the site as well.

right now i have an advertiser whom i very much respect and who makes good, well-built, good looking products that probably 90% of my readers would be interested in. i don't track sales through them but have not heard that they are unhappy with the arrangement. it certainly makes me look better to have that advertiser's name in the sidebar, too.
posted by luriete at 2:44 PM on May 25, 2006

Your question makes it sound like you think agencies create advertising for fun. You get your site in front of ad agencies by paying them money to advertise your site.

If you're looking for advertising agencies that focus on your niche, you can use something like adforum to search for agencies with experience in that niche. If you're looking to do your own advertising, you can use something like AdSense or AdBrite. If you're looking for specific websites, you can use Google or Yahoo.
posted by scottreynen at 3:45 PM on May 25, 2006

Hmm, I think people think I'm looking to advertise my site, it's quite the opposite. I have a website that haves traffic, and now I want advertisers to advertise on the site. No I don't want Adsense, Overture, Adbrite, FastClick etc... I'm looking for bigger campaigns than that. I'm looking for branding campaigns opposed to ecommerce cpc (cost per click campaigns).

My assumptions about ad agencies is that they work with big clients to create marketing campaigns and have employees who work with creating banner campaigns online.

Once again I'm looking for branding. Example... say my site is a fan site about horror movies and I want to advertise new horror movies coming out on the site... how can I go about promoting my site to the relevent agencies?
posted by matimer at 3:54 PM on May 25, 2006

Yeah, you didn't really specify in your question that you're looking to sell rather than buy ads. But the same advice applies: you can find advertisers selling products relevant to your niche on adforum, and you can identify yourself as a provider of ad space within your niche on sites like AdBrite, or you can do all the work yourself, finding and contacting companies who would be interested in buying ad space on your site using Google or Yahoo.

Example... say my site is a fan site about horror movies and I want to advertise new horror movies coming out on the site... how can I go about promoting my site to the relevent agencies?

You have a few options, depending on how much work you want to do:

1) Use Google to find out which company made the new horror movie. Use adforum to find out who does advertising for that company. Contact that agency.

2) Create an account on AdBrite and wait for the advertisers to find you.

3) Put an announcement on your site that you're looking for advertisers and wait for the advertisers to find you.
posted by scottreynen at 4:32 PM on May 25, 2006

You could look into getting a Blogads referral, and then batch your ad offerings with similarly-themed sites.
posted by Scram at 5:19 PM on May 25, 2006