Online Marketers Are Idiots

If you are an online marketer you may feel offended by the title of this post. I would apologise, but it wouldn’t be very honest for me to do so.
The problem doesn’t lie with the online marketer, be they a small operation or even a multinational. The problem lies with website owners or vendors of adspace, who think that it is still 1995.
This maybe an Irish problem, as I’ve never come across the same level of idiocy when dealing with non-Irish publishers…
Let me explain…
Say you want to run an advertising campaign to sell widgets. One of the more obvious places to run adverts would be on a site read by widget lovers, as they would be a part of your target market. So you contact a few of these widget fan sites and request their rates. They’re more than happy to give you their pricing either in CPM or by period. The numbers are quite high, but the site owner’s media pack assures you that their visitors are very discerning widget lovers who like to spend money on widgets. (You may be suffering from widget overload at this point)
So you signup without asking any questions.
You are an idiot!
Ask the siteowner more probing questions about the statistics. Find out if the numbers they quoted were page views, hits or visitors. There’s a very big difference.
Over the last couple of years I’ve spoken to a number of these sales types and they really are amusing, in a painful and annoying kind of way.
Unless they can provide you with reasonably detailed information then walk away.