How To Use RSS Ads To Drive Qualified Leads
By: Curt Conrad
President, BrightCite Inc.
In my last post I discussed how adoption of feed readers are turning RSS into an up and coming online advertising channel. The channel is relatively new and inexpensive, not to mention uncrowded. This is a great time to get in on the ground floor and get ahead of the pack.
Here’s some info on how RSS is being integrated into online ads:
From the post: Turn Ads Into Content & They Work Better:
“In late September, several marketers — including Symantec — rolled out ad units that pulled content into ad banners straight from RSS feeds of those advertisers’ corporate blogs. I just reviewed click-through data for Symantec’s first twenty days, and the early data suggest that RSS-powered deliver better performance, both in terms of click-through rates and engagement.
Normal ads (whether they’re video ads on TV, banner ads on the web or billboards along the freeway) experience “creative fatigue” over time. Creative fatigue means, in essence, our eyes get bored with the same creative after we’ve seen it too often, and we stop noticing it altogether. If you plot the performance of a single creative execution over time, with time passing left to right along the x-axis, it’s a sad, downward slope almost every time. This is why advertisers “refresh” their creative frequently.”
Blog.memeorandum.com expalins the RSS sponsorship model being used by Techmeme (A news and blog aggregator website).
“The way it works is simple. A sponsor’s blog feed is polled every few minutes, the latest post of which appears in its assigned slot (first, second, or third).
Advantages of this approach over banner advertising are numerous. “Click-throughs” can lead to the visitor browsing, commenting on, and even subscribing to the sponsor’s blog. And a sponsor has direct control over what appears on Techmeme simply by posting.”
Here’s how they’re doing it. (Notice the sponsored posts on the right coming from the advertisers Blog Via RSS feed)
This is an exceptional ad model because it hits the intersection of Consumer and Advertiser value. The consumer can self-select meaningful content that stays relevant because it’s constantly updated. The advertiser’s product and services then become next in line for the consumers attention. Even if no transaction takes place, a consumer clicking through to the advertisers blog can set off a chain reaction of back end marketing value through list building,consumer comment feedback, community development, analytic analysis, inbound links, social networking and SEO impact.
We’ll keep our eyes on this as it evolves. But there is no doubt RSS has and will continue to develop into a powerful online marketing and advertising tool for small businesses. We’re working on integrating a similar model in our upcoming Xtenda™ release. Stay tuned…