In any event, I bring this up because over the past few weeks I've talked to ALOT of ad networks. Some of these networks try to justify charging me more for our ad because of the "premium publications" they have deals with (presuming premium is related to the "name" of the publication, and therefore the type of audience they deliver, not the size of the audience.)
I've thought about this, and I've concluded: I don't care. Let me re-phrase: obviously I am not interested in our ads being seen on porn sites or, perhaps, even gambling sites. But other than that I'm not sure I care. For me, it's all about CTR. Once I get them to the site, I hope the brand wears off on them enough that they come back But externally, my focus is getting them there to our pages in an economic fashion.
Basic math: a 1% CTR on a $1.00 remnant display ad means I am paying $.10/ click...return user rate (perhaps a function of the publicaiton, but that's hard ot generalize) brings the cost down even further. Trust me, it's cheaper than the adwords I would buy. This is how I view the world.
So the question is should I care about "premium publications"? Does anyone?
Obviously this disctintion between premium and non-premium relateds to the brand part of advertising. But does anyone run pure brand advertising campaigns on line? By pure brand advertising, I mean one where they don't care about CTR's, they just want their name/logo/slogan/colors/etc. out there?
I think the answer is no. I can't imagine a scenario where a company got their slick new design up on some ads, put the ads on a bunch of sites, found out the ads drew zero traffic....and the CMO was happy. It just doesn't work that way.
Everyone wants traffic. Everyone looks at CTR, CPC, conversion, etc. Now, they might pay a premium element in their advertising to have their brand prominently displayed. But just displaying it isn't enough. In my view, if I buy remnant for $1.00 CPM, 5% is worth it for the brand. The remaining 95% i measure against the clicks.