What do online video ads on video sites cost?

webvideoreport.com has a bit on this - advertising on YouTube requires a $50,000 spend within 90 days for example. Other user generated content sites like Metacafe ranges between $10 CPM to $35 CPM, Break.com placements range from $10 CPM to $35 CPM and a pre-roll video in the music section of MySpace.com (15-second video with a 300x250 pixel ad unit) carries a $25 CPM. On "Telly replacing" sites such as NoGoodTV CPMs range from $15 to $40. Meanwhile on Wall Street Journal the CPM for video on WSJ.com is a whopping $90.

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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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ost.macka's picture

Maybe it's time for you to consider running spots here.  It's a natural.  :-)

Dabitch's picture

Spots before the spot you want to see is nothing but seriously annoying. Sure people whine about ponying up for an upgrade but then they get a searchable database of downloadable spots without other spots attached to it.
Now, sponsoring the spots on the other hand, that is the page that contains the spot in question (with another skin branding the sponsor) that might work. But I think people will get peeved if they wait through a ten second spot to get to the 15-second spot they're after, yaknow?
I could be wrong though. I'm a bit over-careful when it comes to advertising on here.

ost.macka's picture

But if you ran a few spots, and it covered your costs so that everyone could see the spots for free, maybe people wouldn't complain.  Of course it doesn't matter to me since I have an ex-husband who's going to buy me a full year of super-adgrunt status.  ;-)

adlib's picture

I think it would require more than "a few spots" to keep this site running. Perhaps a few spots a day?

ost.macka's picture

When I said "a few spots" did you think I meant a few spots a decade?  Now you suggest "a few spots a day?"  What exactly is "a few?"  Two?  Five?  Ten?  And how was that suggestion any different than mine other than the words "a day?" Was it any more specific?  My suggestion might have meant a few spots an hour or a minute.  I'm not sure why people feel the need to be critical of even the simplest suggestion.  

adlib's picture

Calm down, I wasn't being critical, I was trying to figure how it could work. Assuming they could get 10 dollars a spot, they'd have to post a few a day (or thirty-fifty a month). If you watch what they post each day here, could you imagine having the postings 'diluted' every day with 50% paid for postings? I'm not sure I would like that. In the end, it'll all be advertising but I can just picture the terrible ads they'll have to throw on the front page if they get paid for it. And then they'd have to do this every day, eventually boring the audience away.Unless there was a away I could remove the paid-for posts from the RSS feed, but I'm sure the advertisers wouldn't go for that. Also, this quick guesstimation still doesn't get Dabitch and the crew paid for their work, so who would spend time selling the ad spots, I don't know.

ost.macka's picture

I think you were being critical, or you wouldn't have put quotes around "a few spots."  if you were simply trying to figure out in your own mind how it could work, I think you would have addressed the issue differently.And now, for a little criticism of my own, I think you're being naive about the way web advertising works.  I can imagine all sorts of schemes where the ads wouldn't dilute the content here.  And there's no reason that anyone would have to accept "terrible ads."  There's no reason to think that this site couldn't attract creative advertising, or to think that it couldn't be structured in a way for you bypass watching ads after having to endure a splash page for ten seconds.  As for getting paid for the work, I'm sure Dabitch wouldn't object to that, but I've read where she's said that she wouldn't mind sponsorship which would simply pay her costs so she could open the commercial archives and not have to charge for them.   I think the bottom line is that you can't have it both ways. If Dabitch were to accept sponsorship or advertising to cover costs, then there are certain downsides that are going to come along with that.  If she, and the people who pay for super adgrunt status are happier with things the way they are, then things will stay the way they are.

Kazza's picture

I guess that would depend on how much you charged for the spots and how often they ran, how they ran, if people were forced to watch them or could click to bypass them and so on and so forth.  But as Ost pointed out, this is an advertising site catering to people who are interested in ads, so if a few ads opened it up to everyone and defrayed the costs of operating the site, maybe there wouldn't be too many complaints.

TDD's picture

ost.macka wrote: Maybe it's time for you to consider running spots here. It's a natural. :-)

See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run!

I can't be the only one who was thinking that. :)

"Happiness is overrated."

tod.brody's picture

I can assure you that Ost is not one of the people who was thinking that since she grew up in Stockholm, and she has no idea who Spot, Dick, jane, or Sally were. :-)

ost.macka's picture

I do too know who Dick and Jane are.  And Sally, and Spot and even Puff.  I was born in Sweden in 1957, not 1857. :-)

Dabitch's picture

I thought it though. That silly spot. Isn't there a production company called Spot Run? There should be.

tod.brody's picture

There's one called "C Spot Run."  And there's also a band called See Spot Run, and any number of other companies and organizations.  But I think that mega-producer Scott Rudin should have called his company See Scott Run. :-)

Sport's picture

Back on topic: This is a very ad-savvy crowd. Ads here must be relevant. I'm thankful that the simple act of logging in removes the increasingly annoying Google textads that are irrelevant to me and I love Dabitch for keeping it that way, even when I don't support the site by upgrading. There are a few companies that produce things that we adgrunts want, sure, but I don't think they should sponsor the ads by putting ads in front of the ads. Sponsor the site as a whole maybe. With relevant banners, and such.

tod.brody's picture

Can you explain what you mean by "relevant." Relevant to what or to whom? What's relevant to you may not be relevant to me. There are tens of thousands of adgrunts all coming here with individual agendas. Personally, I'd rather not see banner after banner every time I load another page. I'd rather see a commercial when I log on and be done with it.

Sport's picture

relevant = products or services we might give a toss about. US cellphone services need not apply to me, for instance. I'm not suggesting banners either, I'm suggesting sponsorship.

tod.brody's picture

Right, my point exactly. I couldn't care less about what's relevant to you in the ad world. And I'd imagine that thousands of adgrunts out there don't care about what's relevant to me. So with that spirit, it'll be very hard to satisfy everyone. Impossible actually.

And I do think you originally said, "Sponsor the site as a whole maybe. With relevant banners, and such."

ost.macka's picture

You know when I started this whole thing by saying "Maybe it's time for you to consider running spots here.  It's a natural,"  I was really just joking.  I never seriously meant for there to be commercials or banners or arguments.  I think it was much cooler when we were talking about Dick and Jane and Spot, before we had to get "Back on Topic."Now Tod couldn't care less about what's relevant to Sport and Sport doesn't give a toss about some poor bastard's US cell phone services and he can't remember if he suggested (relevant) banners or not.  The whole thing boggles the mind.

Sport's picture

I can remember what I said, but it is obvious now that I didn't express myself clearly to you. When I said "Sponsor the site as a whole maybe. With relevant banners, and such." I meant that a (single) sponsor, sponsors the site as a whole, with banners on the sides like you can see on popular blogs these days. This isn't quite the same effect as "see banner after banner", as it's more of a skin on the sides of the site instead. Dressing the white space on the sides here in apple Quicksilver steel to announce new hardware from Apple, for example. And by relevant to adgrunts, I mean products or services that have to do with our work. Font houses perhaps. Macromedia downloads. Vaja computer bags. Not, you know, Jif peanut butter or cellphone services from other continents than the reader who sees the ad (an all too common mistake I see on sponsored websites).

tod.brody's picture

I completely understood what you meant. it's irrelevant to me whether banners come from a single sponsor or many advertisers. Banners are banners. And as far as relevancy goes, some of the most frequent "adgrunts" here, have nothing to do with advertising. I'm sure Dabitch can confirm that. For better or worse (and I'm sure you think for worse), I comment more than 99% of the people who come to this site, and I haven't been involved in advertising since 1984. A perfect year to make my exit.

Now as to your idea about dressing the site in Apple Quicksilver, I think that's an excellent one. As a matter of fact I mentioned to Åsk last week that I thought Apple or The Ad Council would be perfect sponsors for the site.

Allan1's picture

I initially took the comment about relevant banners, to mean relevant to the Sponsor and its products/services (or lack thereof - see example below), and what the Sponsor thinks will be relevant to the adgrunts.

e.g. "Adland - brought to you by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts http://www.pewtrusts.org/".

[Note that this is an actual charitable organization that often sponsors Public Broadcast System shows. (They do quite a bit more than just that. They lean left politically, yet they were founded by avid Republicans) . One of the three founders of the Sun Oil Company (aka Sunoco) was Joseph N. Pew. Back when my wife & I were just dating, we went to the Devon Horse Show (in Pennsylvania, USA - an 8 day show/festival), and were waiting in line to buy our entrance into the show - This elderly woman came over to us, and told us to use her tickets, since she wouldn't be back the rest of the day. We took them, and discovered that we were seated in a private box, right by the rail, reserved for the Pews. The woman was Mrs. Pew, as I discovered when visiting a local hospital, where her portrait was on the wall, as one of their benfactors. No. I don't know any of them nowadays].

Also, I like the idea of Apple being a sponsor, even though I don't have one, and I don't have any Apple millionaires for friends...

Allan...
"Remember, no matter where you go... There you are." (Buckaroo Banzai).

tod.brody's picture

Now see, that's one of the things I love about Adland. How one comment can lead to a fun little story like Alan's about the Pew Family or yesterday's suggestion that I abandon my film career to become Copenhagen's Pizza King. Maybe instead of Mustang Pizza, I'll call it Kongens Pizza. Unless it's illegal here to pretend you're the king. It might be.

That being said, Ost should be ashamed of herself for starting the whole advertising controversy which led to the Relevant Banner misunderstanding as well as the debate about staying on topic.

Ost? I hope you're thoroughly ashamed. :-)

ost.macka's picture

Oh yes, I'm so ashamed.  I don't know which is more embarrassing, my unfortunate suggestion to Dabitch which started this whole relevant banner controversy, or my idiotic choice of a mate 30 years ago.  :-)