When Selling Ads in Digital Magazines, Think ‘Web’

Digital magazines have all of the advantages of print magazines except they are online. Right?

In addition, readers have instant random access to content. Everyone wins. Right?

Wrong. Advertisers can lose. If a reader takes a random access skip over their ad, that ad is not seen.

Although digital magazines may look more like a print magazine than a Web site, the random access issue asks us to sell ads more like website advertising.

You will do better to sell positions in a digital magazine that offer adjacency to content that a reader may take a "random access" skip to visit. It is helpful to offer stats on which pages or sections get the most traffic. In short, use some of the same approaches you would use to sell positions on a Web site.

More here …

[Above, right: a slide from a PennWell presentation during the CM show.]

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By Josh Gordon -- Josh Gordon is president of Smarter Media Sales.com where he works with publishers to maximize their online and print revenue through training, consulting, and representation.

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