Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
That analysis is for the generic web ad- not for an ad in an ebook, that may be generated from an analysis of the reader's purchasing history. That would make it far more valuable to the advertiser.
Another kind of ad may be what I originally spoke of -the Kindle Special Offers. These would come from Amazon and its partners. These "ads" seem to be far more attractive to consumers, if THIS THREAD is anything to go by. |
I'm not sure what you mean by a "generic" web ad. That CPM is the average for all web ads. All ads are targeted - ads that appear on ESPN.com are going to be different than ads that appear on flowers.com. Some ads use tracking cookies to be even more targeted. All of these are included in the average, as is the fact that ads on some websites (like those aimed at people interested in purchasing cars) are going to be able to charge more for ads.
I'm not at all certain that ads in ebooks are inherently more valuable than other internet ads. It is not obvious to me that an ad in a Jack Reacher or David Weber or Anthony Trollope book is worth more than an ad on edmunds.com (a website that reviews cars). At least you know the edmunds visitor is interested in buying a car. What is the Trollope reader interested in? Vacations to the UK? A carriage? Equipment for the sadly neglected English pastime of lawn howling? :-)
Based on this, I'm don't see e-book ads as being more lucrative than conventional ads.
The next issue you raise is whether the ads would be more valuable if they are generated from an analysis of the reader's purchasing history. This is really only relevant to Amazon; I don't think that any other e-book retailer would have much that was really of value except perhaps to people advertising books. And I can imagine the outrage if Amazon changed its privacy policy to permit the use of your ten year history of purchases with Amazon to sell ads to you. People would not stand for it, and I don't think Amazon would cut their own throat either by alienating their customers *or* by sharing valuable customer data that they have with others.
And even if they did, the economics are still bad. Even if you could make an e-book ad worth ten times as much as the average CPM, we're still only talking 2.5c per book. Sell ten highly targeted ads tailored to you specifically and we're still only talking a quarter per book. Sell 100 highly targeted ads based on your unique purchasing history and the $14.99 book is now selling for $12.49. Still not a huge deal considering the 100 ads you'll have to deal with...and the book is only that cheap if *all* of the ad revenue is passed on to the customer.
So I don't see it.