Advertisers figure out what smart people already knew

Posted on July 24th, 2008 by FreleblageCig

Newsflash: advertising on social networking sites is a waste of money.

Nobody can make money on social network ads. Even Google (which controls a lot of the inventory on MySpace) is having a hard time. How worthless are these ads? Lookery, an ad network for social apps on Facebook and elsewhere, is renewing a promotion, guaranteeing 15 cents per thousand page impressions to app developers who sign up. With two ads per page, that comes to 7.5 cents per thousand ad impressions (CPMs). Back in January, Lookery was offering 12.5 cents per ad impression. So that means Lookery has cut its ad rates nearly in half.

Wait, you mean young people just want to find their friends, play games and make werewolf hunters? They don’t want to click onto a little glowing annoying ad for a product?

Part of the problem is the wrong companies are advertising on social networking sites. Yes, while geezers like me have accounts, and love reconnecting with old friends, the majority of people on Facebook and MySpace are younger. Advertisers on MySpace have at least learned how to cross-promote. People want lots of media, preferably movies or reality tv, and a little known secret–they hate when something cool and viral turns out to be marketing, they turn on it quick.

In show business they say “know your audience.”

The problem is sort of two-fold:

First, there is the advertisers page, and no one really wants to make Cheetos their friend to get them and their friends spammed unless it’s in an ironic way; and no one wants to constantly friend and de-friend, or decorate their page with pop culture things like shows or movies that lose their relevance.

Did I mention that they hate spam?

The second is the social ad that targets people based on interests, etc. It’s easy to skip over as someone is scrolling since they know what they want once they get there.

In the internet age, one is going to have to be a little more clever to get through to the savvy and disaffected youth to take their dollars, especially with anti-ad software on the rise.

I still think advertisers should get it on this porn craze I hear is sweeping the internet. There’s never a shortage for people looking for that online.