Executive
Summary of Press Release - Copyright ipip Technologies
Google AdSense™ is a program for online businesses, enabling
them to earn revenue from serving ads precisely targeted
to specific keywords. Google claims that 150,000 advertisers
benefit from AdSense. Our analysis confirms that carefully
designed advertising campaigns can provide tremendous value
through exposure across the Google Network.
Press Release
Google AdSense Case Study
How PetPlace.com grew ad revenue by thousands of dollars
per month.
Case study : PetPlace.com : www.petplace.com
Based in Weston , Fla., Intelligent Content Corp. is a
major provider of e-learning, interactive marketing and
custom technology solutions for the animal health industry.
These solutions bring together pet owners, veterinary professionals,
and industry sponsors with the common goal of helping pets
live longer, happier, and healthier lives. One of the company's
website properties is PetPlace.com, a definitive resource
for pet news, health and wellness information spanning seven
animal species. PetPlace.com, which employs a full-time
staff of 10 and retains 18 veterinary experts, also provides
a large portion of pet-related content for AOL, Netscape,
and Compuserve, among other sites.
Approach
Since it first launched in 1999, the business model for
PetPlace.com revolved around content sponsorships, says
Scott H. Zucker, Executive Vice President and COO of Intelligent
Content Corp. "But without a dedicated sales staff
to market and sell traditional advertising formats like
banner advertisements and sponsored links," he says,
"the website's revenue potential was limited."
Zucker was determined to find a way to monetize the traffic
PetPlace.com generated. He also wanted to turn a profit
on the company's investment in high quality content and
do so without adding headcount.
"Our readers spend a long time on the site so it's
important that we offer advertising that doesn't annoy or
distract [our readers]."
"We were attracted to an advertising approach for
content-rich sites like ours," says Zucker. "We
suspected that our readers would not mind seeing relevant
ads, and would in fact respond positively to them."
PetPlace.com measures reader interest through article views.
"Our readers spend a long time on the site," he
says, "nearly 40 minutes a session. So it's important
that we offer advertising that doesn't annoy or distract
them. That's why we decided to try Google AdSense."
Zucker developed the first campaign in August 2003."
Results
After what Zucker calls a "very straightforward"
implementation of AdSense code that took just an hour, he
started to view reader responses and see results. "In
the first full month of running AdSense ads," he says,
"we created a significant new revenue stream, worth
thousands of dollars monthly to the company, without increasing
any of our expenses. The second month, overall website traffic
increased by 17 percent, and revenue from Google ads jumped
by more than 20 percent. We're now projecting Google advertising
earnings to reach five times the revenue generated by our
affiliate ad relationships last year . And that's without
adding any staff."
"We created a significant new revenue stream, worth
thousands of dollars monthly to the company ?? and that's
without adding any staff."
Now that he's set up his AdSense account, Zucker doesn't
have to spend time making changes. But he has opted to spend
about an hour each day closely monitoring ad performance
and testing such AdSense features as background and font
colors, borders, and selective ad blocking, all of which
may affect response rate. "It's fascinating to see
what affects our readers," says Zucker. "I gained
1.5 percent on my clickthrough rate by changing our background,
text and border colors."
As Google continues to add new functionality, Zucker hopes
to further improve ad revenue across the site . "We're
seeing this impressive new revenue stream without incurring
any cost," he says. "We're maximizing our previously-unsold
inventory, and our revenue per page figure continues to
grow." All of which leads Zucker to conclude that "clearly,
context-sensitive ads are right for PetPlace.com, and Google
has helped us prove an advertising model that really works
for us."
About Google AdSense
Google AdSense™ is a program for online businesses, enabling
them to earn revenue from serving ads precisely targeted
to specific web content and search pages. A broad universe
of sites profit from AdSense, with service levels ranging
from online sign-up to dedicated support management. Google's
150,000 advertisers also benefit from AdSense by gaining
exposure on sites across the Google Network, including AOL,
Ask Jeeves, Lycos, and EarthLink. Visit www.google.com/adsense.
© 2004 Google - AdSense Home - Contact Us
About ipip
Technologies, LLC
ipip Technologies is a specialized knowledge provider of
business information. The firm provides expertise in Internet
business, including online publications, entry-level consulting,
specialized research reports, and a framework for identifying
winning business strategies. The company's mission is to
level the playing field by providing startup, small, and
growing businesses with services comparable to those available
to the fortune 500.
