Finding a good advertiser for my website.

Spectral Swallow

Right now I have google adsense running on my website, but I'm trying to find a good advertising partner rather than relying on Google.
A bit about my site:
96% of the users are women over 21 with a college degree (it's an educational website, so it's mostly teachers).
I average about 4 million page views a month and right now about 20,000 clicks on the adsense ads. (which to me seems pretty good).

I HAVE tried to contact Geico directly about advertising (they frequently show up through adsense) but I got the run around with about 10 different folks and none of them were in advertising...
... so that was a waste of time.

Basically I'm not really sure how to even go about contacting someone or who might even be a good fit.

TychoCelchuuu

I have no useful advice on the direct question, but I do have some related advice, which is to hurry up, because sooner or later Google will invent robots that will kill you for this sort of thing.

MagicToaster

Spectral Swallow wrote: »

I HAVE tried to contact Geico directly about advertising (they frequently show up through adsense) but I got the run around with about 10 different folks and none of them were in advertising...

I think you're on the right track with contacting people directly and making a sales pitch, but it has to be the right people. The marketing manager (or his equivalent) is who you want to reach. Sometimes they're very busy, so you might have to leave your info with an assistant or a secretary. If this happens, just get the manager's email and follow up in a couple of days.

A tip: I don't know what kind of website you run, but you'll get better clients if you approach people in the same industry as what you talk about.

Spectral Swallow

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

I have no useful advice on the direct question, but I do have some related advice, which is to hurry up, because sooner or later Google will invent robots that will kill you for this sort of thing.

Do... do you think they're watching me now.
:?

MagicToaster wrote: »

I think you're on the right track with contacting people directly and making a sales pitch, but it has to be the right people. The marketing manager (or his equivalent) is who you want to reach. Sometimes they're very busy, so you might have to leave your info with an assistant or a secretary. If this happens, just get the manager's email and follow up in a couple of days.

A tip: I don't know what kind of website you run, but you'll get better clients if you approach people in the same industry as what you talk about.

The problem with others in the same industry is that they're in direct competition. It'd be like Bing advertising on Google.

wrong_button

As someone who has bought advertising, I'd recommend you get your pertinent audience demographics, reach and samples of site content together in the form of a letter or e-mail and get that in the hands of some media buyers. Most ad agencies have these, as well as a lot of large Ad/MarComm departments in larger companies.

Your hard part is going to be getting through the door, but if you have a good product and can send along the right information, you might be able to get your phone to ring. Make sure you have a rate sheet/schedule put together with all of your available ad options. Unless your site has extremely good visibility already (which I'd assume it doesn't because you're asking this), most aren't going to have time to chase around your ad program. So have your numbers all nailed down.

Not sure what your geographic reach is, but you may have to start by the ol' spray and pray method to get through to some national-level agencies, which sucks. But if you have some local agencies you might be able to get in the door easier (depending where you're located). If you can, get them some "ground floor" pricing in return for letting you hone what exactly they need in terms of info or persuasion to start making a more effective approach strategy for some of the larger advertisers. Ideally once you get a couple decent national accounts you'll start getting picked up when competitors' marketing departments start doing competitive analysis. In as much, be sure you have a page on your site somewhere to request advertiser info too.

Hope something in there helps - good luck!

edit: Geth may be interested in finding out more.

Spectral Swallow

wrong_button wrote: »

As someone who has bought advertising, I'd recommend you get your pertinent audience demographics, reach and samples of site content together in the form of a letter or e-mail and get that in the hands of some media buyers. Most ad agencies have these, as well as a lot of large Ad/MarComm departments in larger companies.

Your hard part is going to be getting through the door, but if you have a good product and can send along the right information, you might be able to get your phone to ring. Make sure you have a rate sheet/schedule put together with all of your available ad options. Unless your site has extremely good visibility already (which I'd assume it doesn't because you're asking this), most aren't going to have time to chase around your ad program. So have your numbers all nailed down.

Not sure what your geographic reach is, but you may have to start by the ol' spray and pray method to get through to some national-level agencies, which sucks. But if you have some local agencies you might be able to get in the door easier (depending where you're located). If you can, get them some "ground floor" pricing in return for letting you hone what exactly they need in terms of info or persuasion to start making a more effective approach strategy for some of the larger advertisers. Ideally once you get a couple decent national accounts you'll start getting picked up when competitors' marketing departments start doing competitive analysis. In as much, be sure you have a page on your site somewhere to request advertiser info too.

Hope something in there helps - good luck!

edit: Geth may be interested in finding out more.

I think I have all the information an advertiser would need through google analytics (it breaks everything down by location, demographic, etc). So I should be good on that front.
My big thing is I don't even know where to find an advertising agency. The website is nationwide, so a local ad agency wouldn't be a good fit.
But all the ad agencies I google seem to be geared more toward the people looking to advertise (rather than looking for an advertiser).
=/
I'll probably just start calling every one of them and maybe they'll be able to at least point me in the right direction.

007ctrl_room

since you have a solid traffic base, i would reach out to other ad platform companies to strike a decent CPM rate. just make sure in the end you're going to be better off than had you simply stayed with adsense.