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Introducing Lijit’s Advertiser Insights for online publishers.
Dec 5th
by Sonya Caprio in Company, Lijit publishers, features, release announcements
It is a core company philosophy at Lijit that from an analytics perspective we feed as much data as possible back to our publishers, and that we make the data so easily digestible that you can take immediate action on it. It’s what we like to refer to as “actionable analytics.”
Today Lijit released a new tool as part of our audience analytics platform called Advertiser Insights. Advertiser Insights provides publishers with a list of the top brands that align to your site’s readers. Publishers can use this data to support direct sales efforts as well as to develop editorial content that better attracts top brand advertisers. Any publisher using any of Lijit’s services (ad services, analytics, and/or reader engagement tools) now receives Advertiser Insights in their publisher dashboard – just log in today and check it out!
Simple to digest? Couldn’t be easier.
What’s cool about our new Advertiser Insights data is that it highlights the brands that align to your site’s readers, not just your site itself. It aggregates all of the data we have as readers traverse the entire Lijit network, and provides the information back to publishers to apply directly to your site.
With over 150,000 sites and 300 million global uniques, the Lijit Network continues to grow exponentially. We’ve seen a 700% growth in ad calls in 2011 alone, and currently deliver over 11 billion ad impressions each month. Now that’s a lot of reader data we’re trying to reflect back to publishers!
As we look for new ways to help publishers build their business using valuable analytics, we will continue to leverage the power of the Lijit Network to help publishers grow their site and make more money through targeted advertising. To read more about the value of a network, check out a previous blog post from Lijit’s COO Walter Knapp, “For a Publisher, the Network Matters.”
Tags: Lijit publishers, new features, publishers, release announcements | View Comments
Why Publishers Should Embrace Programmatic Buying
Nov 30th
by Manny Puentes in Company, Lijit publishers, industry, technology
Those who “own” inventory are concerned that through exchanges, advertisers and trading desks have access to the same premium placements at lower CPMs, thereby diluting direct sales opportunities.
As a premium publisher, you probably invest in a sales team to monetize your inventory. You sell a unique readership, social engagement capabilities, contextual relevance, and other site-specific aspects that help value premium inventory at premium prices. Your team works hard to close direct deals with high CPMs to make sure the value of the inventory is not diluted so they can keep cash in their pockets!
On the other side of the coin is the brand advertiser. Brand advertisers also have concerns about exchanges because they are hyper-sensitive to brand alignment. They work hard to protect their brand from the “Wild West” we call the Internet, and are über-sensitive to the variability of content across the web.
Buying direct from premium publishers ensures contextual relevancy and protects against brand conflict. It’s the safe route that allows a brand advertiser to lock in contextually relevant real estate and track ROI.
A “true” private exchange turns potential dilution of inventory, internal struggles with the sales team, and contextual awareness into a big-time publisher opportunity. In a true private exchange, the sales team continues to work with advertisers to sell premium inventory. Let’s not forget what’s important to advertisers: (1) contextual placement and (2) guaranteed inventory/unique(s).
A “true” private exchange gives priority bidding to the select advertisers that have negotiated a higher mid-tier CPM. The CPM is higher than on an open exchange because it’s backed by data, yet lower than a premium CPM because it’s not guaranteed.
The industry needs to embrace true private exchanges. A “true” private exchange solves a real business problem for both the publisher and advertiser:
(1) Publishers can place inventory on a private exchange at a $3-$10 CPMs and offer it to a “select” set of advertisers
(2) Publishers can use the private exchange to build a process and compensation plan for the sales team
3) Advertisers feel safe using a private exchange that guarantees contextual placement and protects against brand conflict.
The private exchange is a true private marketplace where the prioritized advertiser with the highest bid wins.
Tags: ads, blogging, industry, Lijit Advertising Services | View Comments
As a marketer, I’ve used Google Analytics for years. The problem with Google Analytics is that it provides too much information… so much that very few people know what to do with it all. It often comes up in conversation with our publishers, and they all agree.
Lijit’s goal is to provide an easy-to-use alternative to Google Analytics so we held a roundtable discussion with 15 publishers to learn about the most beneficial data for their site. Everyone agreed that “actionable analytics” are what’s important. Publishers don’t want or need every last detail about their website and traffic. What they do need is relevant data they can use to grow their site and make more money.
The premise: the more you know about your audience, the more you can tailor your content to meet their needs. This engages your audience which helps increase pageviews and grow traffic. The more traffic to your site, the more money you can make from online advertising.
We have recently done a lot of work at Lijit to enhance our Audience Analytics and focus on what we refer to as “actionable analytics” – meaningful and actionable stats that help you grow and monetize your site. For those of you who may not know about all the data we provide, you can each log into your personalized dashboard depending on the type of Lijit services that you use. Data includes:
- Audience demographics: age, gender, ethnicity, income level and education.
- Advertising performance: stats on ad requests, ad impressions, CPM, fill rate, and earnings to help you optimize revenue.
- Audience understanding: data on pageviews, geography, referring sites and searches, top posts, outbound clicks, and other sites that link to you.
- Search intent: statistics relating to number of searches, top searches and last searches, top clicked results and last clicked results, and searches that returned no results.
For those using Lijit’s advertising services, an ‘Ads Today’ section provides trending data comparing the current day’s ad performance to performance one week and one month prior.
Check out the cool interface:
To download Lijit’s Audience Analytics, click here. Please let us know what you think – we’re always looking for feedback!
Tags: Lijit publishers, lijit stats, publishers | View Comments
Lijit publisher Tweety Got Back brings “sweet sushi” to Lijit!
Jun 24th
by Sonya Caprio in Community, Company, Lijit publishers
At Lijit, we pride ourselves in the personal relationships we have with our publishers. We’ve been lucky enough to meet many of you in person and love to open our doors to locals and anyone traveling through Colorado who wants to check out our office.
This week, one of our local publishers, Tweety Got Back, decided to make the team at Lijit some special treats to say “thanks.” Tweety Got Back is a Twitter theme shoppe offering free backgrounds and themes. For all you publishers who use Twitter to promote your site, check out all the cool themes you can use!
As Rachel tweeted about these sweets she was concocting in her kitchen, we pondered what was going to show up at the office… cookies, brownies, cake? But what walked through the door were some of the most creative sweets we had ever seen. Believe it or not it was “sweet sushi,” made out of rice krispy treats and dried fruit. Needless to say, we ate them up!
Check out some of the photos below to see how beautiful they look, and thanks to Tweety Got Back for taking care of your friends at Lijit.
For those who want to make your own “sweet sushi,” click here for the recipe.
Tags: Lijit publishers | View Comments
For a publisher, the network matters
Jun 6th
by Walter Knapp in Community, Company, Lijit publishers
What we’re working on at Lijit is a way to help publishers extract added value from being part of a network. Here’s how we see it:
According to Metcalf’s Law, a network’s value derives from the number of nodes that are connected to the network. Metcalfe’s law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2). Metcalfe’s law was originally presented, circa 1980, not in terms of users, but rather of “compatible communicating devices” (for example, fax machines, telephones, etc). Only recently with the launch of the internet did this law carry over to users and networks as its original intent was to describe Ethernet purchases and connections. The law is also very much related to economics and business management, especially with competitive companies looking to merge with one another. For example, 2 telephones can make only 1 connection, 5 can make 10 connections, and 12 can make 66 connections (see graphic to the left).
In the web of online publishing, the notion of network value is under-exposed (forgotten even?) when it comes to individual websites. Most of the “network effect” online remains confined to well-known examples like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and eBay. That doesn’t have to be the case. There is no reason that individual publishers or networks of sites of any size can’t benefit from being a node on the broader network and the associated reader, advertiser and traffic patterns.
Lijit leverages the aggregated network footprint of readers, search terms, demographics, brand advertisers, and a list of other important attributes. We take that aggregated asset and then feed the network value back to each individual publisher or site. This reflection of network value helps publishers simply: be better. Write better content. Curate more relevant things. Uncover ways to engage their readers more. And even make more money if that’s of interest to them. Every offering we have is free to the publisher, simple to implement, and comes with no strings attached. Publishers get value from it, or they vote with their feet and leave the network.
There are 5 primary categories of information that Lijit is providing publishers to help them gain crucial insights and actionable information. Information that they can use to make sites better, create or curate more engaging content, gain reader attention, and deliver better advertising that helps marketers reaches the right consumers.
- Comparisons: How does my site compare to other like sites?
- Trending: Are their macro trends that affect my advertising revenue?
- Indexes: Do sites like mine lag or exceed my peers?
- Intent: What are my readers looking or searching for?
- Engagement: How do readers engage into and with my content?
In each of the topical areas above the answer exists, or is amplified by, the networked connections between aggregation, comparison, and multi-site behavior of traffic, readers, marketers, social content, and reader expressions.
There does not exist a service today that helps publishers extract this understanding, much less value, from being a participant in the internet network. Look for some exciting and innovative new tools, services and analytics from Lijit in the near future that provide added value to publishers based on the key ingredients of network and context.
Tags: industry, Lijit publishers | View Comments
Lijit Study Shows Publisher Adoption of Social Media Tools Grows 80%
Mar 2nd
by Sonya Caprio in Community, Company, Lijit publishers
Over 15,000 sites on the Internet use Lijit’s advertising services, on-site search tool, and other widgets (analytics widget, recent readers widget, related content widget). Analytics are built into all of our tools but we do not sell the data. Instead, we feed it back to our publishers to help them better understand their audience and monetize their site. We also aggregate the data and use it to optimize CPMs and fill rates for our publishers.
Over the last few weeks we ran a detailed analysis to see what widgets are most often deployed on publisher sites across the Lijit network. We compared 2009 and 2010 data to identify market trends. Outlined below are some of the most interesting takeaways.
Background:
- 2010: 735,834 sites surveyed, 84.8% with widgets installed (13,541,022 widgets)
- 2009: 744,848 sites surveyed, 84.7% with widgets installed (13,826,562 widgets)
Key research findings:
The Lijit Top 50
Below is a list of the top 50 widgets and tools implemented on publisher websites. The adoption of social media widgets – including tools used for social networking, micro-blogging, bookmarking, and photo sharing – grew 80% from 2009 to 2010. Widget adoption specifically related to Facebook and Twitter almost doubled, growing from 6.96% to 11.86%.
Additional analysis revealed the following trends:
- Many content and engagement tools joined the Lijit Top 50 list for the first time in 2010. These tools include Twitter’s image sharing service, LinkWithin, Wibiya, and Tynt.
- Related content tools to keep readers on-site longer didn’t make the list of Top 10 tools in 2009 but are now being used by 3.68% of sites surveyed.
- Online advertising services continue to track at a 20% adoption rate; however, new monetization tools used in affiliate marketing programs such as Skimlinks, Infolinks, and Amazon saw a 16% increase in 2010.
- Audience analytics tools from Quantcast are becoming much more prevalent. Over 44% of the sites that use analytics use Quantcast to gather reader data, representing a 15% year-over-year growth.
- Website commenting systems now integrate social media components. Disqus, used on almost 75% of the sites that use a 3rd party comment provider, now supports social media commenting and sharing on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, Twitsteps, a Twitter-powered commenting system, now ranks the second most widely used commenting system after growing 356% in 2010.
Referring traffic
Three main categories of referring traffic data were analyzed: 1) search engine traffic; 2) organic traffic (defined by sites linking to each other); and 3) social media traffic. A deeper look at referring traffic from social media sources verifies that both social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter as well as social sharing tools such as StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit are being used to drive traffic to publisher websites.
For additional insights into our research analysis, please read our press release, “Lijit Networks Announces Results of 2010 Publisher Tools Analysis.”
Our methodology:
Our definition of “widget” is “any regularly-occurring functionality on a website powered by an external service, voluntarily installed by the site owner, and powered by Flash or Javascript.”
- “Functionality” includes analytics widgets. These add functionality for the publisher but are invisible to visitors.
- “Voluntarily” excludes widgets automatically added by the hosting platform. We are only interested in widgets that publishers make an effort to install.
- Image-based badges, such as FeedBurner subscriber counts, are not counted. HTML forms, such as the original Google search boxes, are also not counted. We may include support for these in the future.
- Our crawl is “centered” on sites with the Lijit widget (ad tags, site search and other Lijit widgets). Our crawler then expands outwards by following blogrolls and other linked sites. This may skew the overall results since research originates from sites within the Lijit Network.
Tags: industry, Lijit publishers, lijit stats, publishers, widget statistics | View Comments
Last week I had the pleasure of being on a panel at the Forum and Communities conference in San Francisco.
Since the inception of Lijit we have worked with publishers who have amazingly engaged communities of readers. Many of these publishers are in the mid- and long-tail. They have highly niche and conversational sites which encourages readers to engage by returning often, leaving comments, etc. My personal theory is that it’s because blogs tend to surface more of the personality of the author. Over time this personality acts as meta-data that the reader uses to form a bond with the publication, resulting in higher reader engagement. Lijit’s services were designed to help publishers foster this engagement.
Participating in the Forum and Communities conference introduced me to a different kind of publisher. Forums or message boards are places where extreme enthusiasts come to together online to share information about their deepest passions. For example, I regularly browse car forums to find information about the cars I own. I recently dug up some facts on the Camaro5 forum about how to install an aftermarket part. Forums are an amazing wealth of information. Many call forums the original social network.
Forums tend to get a lot of their traffic from Google and other horizontal search engines. That makes sense given all the original user generated content (UGC) that appears on forums. Interestingly, forums tend to receive very few referrals from social network services such as Twitter of Facebook which probably has something to do with their makeup. Forums tend to focus on the community without having a clear central personality. This makes it difficult to leverage a personality-based service like Twitter to drive traffic.
With a little creativity, however, forums could easily leverage these social tools. When I look at sites like icanhascheezburger.com, the CEO Ben Huh has done an excellent job with Twitter serving as a single personality who represents a curated site where content is created by the community. Ben highlights various posts and general information about the site which helps engage the community and keeps readers coming back for more.
I really enjoyed the time I spent with forum publishers and am committed to finding ways that Lijit can work with them to provide the same great business partnership we have with mid- and long-tail sites!
Tags: events, Lijit publishers | View Comments
Lijit Supports Cookie Week – A Roundup of Cookie Recipes
Dec 3rd
by Grace Boyle in Community, Lijit publishers
It is CookieWeek!
Did you know that?
In an effort to celebrate delicious, sweet morsels we’ve done a roundup of some delicious cookie recipes from some foodie, Lijit publishers. Enjoy!
The Cupcake Project: Oreo Cookies Made From Scratch
Brown Eyed Baker: Lemon Burst Cookies
The Perfect Pantry: Sugar, Cookies (Recipe: the world’s best sugar cookie)
Heavenly Homemakers: Snickerdoodles
Andrea’s Recipes: Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies
Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures: Fudgy Coconut Cookies
Whisk: Buttery Jam Cookies
80 Breakfasts: Fig and Honey Cookies
A Few Short Cuts: Cinnamon Bun Cookies
What are your favorite cookie recipes?
Tags: features, Lijit publishers | View Comments
Mr. Castleberry
I fancy myself a stylish gent to a certain extent. I dress for the occasion meaning I don’t wear t-shirts to black-tie affairs nor do I don tuxedos at beach parties (though few and far between here in Colorado). At any rate, as dapper as I would like to consider myself, it pales in comparison when I peruse the pages of Unabashedly Prep, the brainchild of one Mr. F. E. Castleberry. As the url suggest, the site is an homage the prep look and lifestyle, featuring high-quality photographs of various looks that illicit positive and negative comments. But when you put yourself out there as Castleberry does and be, well, unabashed, as he is about his style, you have to learn to to take the good with the bad… and how to look good doing it.
Without further ado, on behalf of Lijit and myself, a Q&A with F. E. Castleberry:
What initially got you into the world of blogging, etc.?
My previous career as a wedding photographer essentially required that I blog as part of a business strategy to remain relevant.
Your site is definitely geared towards the style-side of life. What got you into fashion?
My mom essentially. Not that my style is anything close to that of my mom’s, but she had her own voice. I picked that up from her at a very young age.
Name a few of your style icons and why:
Sid Mashburn, Ralph Lauren, Michael Bastian, Mark McNairy…they all do the Classic American thing so well yet each put their own twist on it. There are key elements of preppiness in each of their bodies of work.
How do you generate revenue, if you do, off of Unabashedly Prep?
Selling advertising.
Dapper
What are you most proud of both in life and with U.P.?
In life, it would have to be learning to listen to my heart, pursuing what I’m passionate about. With Unabashedly Prep, I am most proud of the tight content curation around the prep aesthetic.
What has been your biggest challenge?
My biggest challenge has been the transition from my wedding photography career to what I’m currently doing now with Unabashedly Prep. Transition can be uncomfortable but is often necessary.
What is the most interesting thing you have learned?
That I actually enjoy writing…and that no one else on earth loves me more than my mom. She is my number one supporter.
The comments on the site can, at times, be a little brash. How do you deal with that and find the motivation to keep going?
I moderate comments in a fashion that keeps the responses on the subject matter. Anything personal I just let roll off my back. You get a pretty thick skin very quickly putting yourself out there for everyone. What drives you has to come from within…it can’t come from a place of seeking the approval of others.
What else besides running U.P. do you like doing? What keeps the lights on?
Spending time with my two sons (introducing them to the fine arts), experiencing live music, playing soccer, photography, and traveling.
What recommendations do you have for other publishers/bloggers/etc?
You get out of your blog what you put into it.
How has Lijit helped you become a more successful publisher?
Lijit has enhanced my readers’ experience when it comes to searching for specific content while presenting them with other relevant content/publishers.
Tags: publisher spotlight | View Comments
Oftentimes, I’m sitting in the office and someone from our Publisher Services team bursts out laughing on a whim. Come to find out, it’s because they’re looking at one of the funniest sites in our network… and trust me, there are a lot of them! It’s Cake Wrecks – an entire site devoted to “when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.” We sat down with them recently to find out what makes them tick.
What gave you the idea of Cake Wrecks?
The first cake I ever posted on Cake Wrecks, the “cake that started it all,” was actually the inspiration for the whole blog. I friend e-mailed it to me, and a little light bulb went on. I never expected anyone other than a few friends to read it though; Cake Wrecks was supposed to be purely for my “own” amusement. The fact that people soon began finding it and enjoying it and telling their friends about it was simply shocking to me. Good, of course, but shocking!
What is your business model?
Uh… well, to be honest, I don’t think we really have one. The site got so popular that we ran a few ads. Through a lot of research and trial and error, we now work with a lot of great ad providers like Lijit. Everything with Cake Wrecks has been a lot of trial and error, from the site design to the amount of content we post. Mostly I just focus on making the blog as funny and easy to navigate as possible. That’s my only real concern.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Maintaining the daily posting, without a doubt. I set a goal to post every day over two years ago and stuck to it even when John (my husband) was near death in the hospital “on the Cake Wrecks book tour.” Not to toot my own horn, but THAT took serious dedication – and it was one of the worst days of my life. Eventually I started taking some Saturdays off, although about half the time we’ll still post something then, too. Maintaining that pace and consistency has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Like anyone, some days I just don’t feel very funny. Pushing through those times never gets any easier, but the response from the fans makes it worthwhile.
What is the most interesting thing you have learned?
Hmm… well, since I’d never done anything like this before, I’d say most of what I’ve learned has been about the online dynamic. The fact that people online are cruel, and quick to judge, and bore easily. I suppose if you’re cynical you could say ALL people are like that, online or off, but online people can hide behind their screens and say the most outrageous things to you. So I’ve learned that people are surprisingly cruel, and often for no reason. But then again, I’ve also learned that people can be unbelievably kind. When John was in the ER in that hospital, we were stranded in Dallas, Texas for nearly a week. The outpouring of support and offers of help – everything from laundry service to meals – from Cake Wrecks readers was simply staggering. I learned then that a goofy cake blog can actually foster a kind of community. If you’d told me that two years ago, I never would have believed you.
Any recommendations for other publishers?
From the feedback I get from my own readers, I believe that consistent posting and a certain level of transparency – allowing your personality to shine through, no matter what the subject is – are both key. Maintaining your passion is also a must, if only so you don’t burn out and lose the will to blog!
How has Lijit helped you become a better publisher?
To be honest, the Lijit search tool has been a real life-saver for me. The Google search we were using hadn’t worked on Cake Wrecks for almost a year, and we had no way to fix it. Not being about to find old posts that I needed to reference was extremely frustrating. Having such a clean interface now… that works!… is one of those things I’ll never take for granted again.