The NaturalNews Direct Advertising System allows small, medium and large companies to advertiser directly on NaturalNews.com content pages. This document explains this advertising system and answers the most frequently asked questions about it.
To contact the NaturalNews advertising department, call us at (U.S.) 520-232-9300 or email: ads@naturalnews.com
The NaturalNews Direct Advertising System is a
CPM advertising model, meaning advertisers pay a set fee per 1,000 impressions. There are no long-term contracts, but there is a minimum one-time budget of $500 required to begin advertising with us.
Is this a pay-per-click model?Nope. While this is not a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) model, we do count the number of clicks on each of your ads, reporting the performance of each ad in real time. We do *not* track any user cookies or user behavior data, including ROI data, as we feel that would infringe too much on the privacy of our readers. Your report simply shows impressions, clicks and expenditures for each of your ads, in real time.
What ad formats are accepted?We accept JPG and other graphic formats. We also accept Flash files (swf), and any animation must be limited to 5 seconds. Video thumbnails are acceptable, too, as long as they are not set to "auto play" on our pages (they may auto-play on your landing page, however).
How do I track ad performance?As an advertiser, you can log in and view the results of your ad campaigns in real time, seeing the number of impressions and clicks that have occurred on each ad (including performance summary data). From there, you can pause or reactivate ads, change your daily maximum expenditure settings (you can limit your ad impressions to $X per day, your choice) or buy more impressions for your account.
How does my account balance work?As your ads appear on NaturalNews, impressions are deducted from your remaining impressions balance. When your account balance reaches zero, your ads stop appearing. At your request, we can automatically recharge your account with a preset dollar amount (such as $200) each time your account balance approaches zero.
How often does my ad appear?Your ads will be rotated with ads from other advertisers. Those advertisers with the greatest remaining balance will see their ads shown more often. Thus, "larger" advertisers get their ads shown more frequently, but smaller advertisers still get theirs shown, too. What's important to understand here is that
advertisers are only charged for the actual impressions delivered on their ads. You are not paying "per day" or "per page" or "per click." You are only paying a set fee per 1,000 impressions.
Disallowed products
NaturalNews only allows the advertising of products, services or organizations that adhere to a genuine natural health or green living lifestyle. We also allow the advertising of "health neutral" products that may benefit readers such as computers or non-profit humanitarian organizations. If you're not sure about your own organization, just email us and ask. Essentially, if whatever you're offering doesn't harm people and doesn't harm the planet (or life on the planet), we will most likely allow it.
Products that contain any of the following ingredients may NOT be advertised on NaturalNews:
Aspartame, Sucralose, corn syrup, parabens, artificial fragrance, partially-hydrogenated oils, phosphoric acid, artificial colors, MSG, yeast extract (or other hidden forms of MSG), refined sugar, refined white flour and various other chemicals found in foods and personal care products. This is not a complete list. NaturalNews reserves the right to reject any ad for any reason, without explanation.
Obviously, we do not accept ads promoting mammograms, chemotherapy or other harmful medical procedures.
What kind of products or services are a good fit for NaturalNews?We
encourage and welcome the promotion of eco-friendly, holistic health products, services and organizations. Water filters, air filters, "green" cosmetics, health books, new documentary movies, green baby products and many other similar products will tend to do very well with the NaturalNews audience.
Who may NOT advertise on NaturalNews?Certain corporations are banned for life from advertising on NaturalNews. Those corporations include Monsanto, ADM, DuPont, Merck, Pfizer, Philip Morris and many others.
Ads may NOT direct users to a landing page containing pop-over or pop-under windows. This is strictly forbidden.
Creating successful ad campaigns
Simply running an ad on NaturalNews does not ensure success. A successful ad will be informative and engaging, raising the curiosity of the reader who wants to click on your ad to learn more.
The best way to determine which ads will work best is to
test them first on Google Adwords. Try half a dozen ads with Adwords and see which ad produces the best clickthrough results. Then take that ad and submit it to NaturalNews. It will likely produce the best results on NaturalNews as well. Currently, the ad size we allow on NaturalNews is 300 x 250, which is exactly the same ad size as the most popular Google ad size.
When your ads appear on NaturalNews, visitors who click them will be taken to your landing page (you set the URL). Once visitors arrive at your landing page, be sure to ask for their email address so you can keep in touch with them via email. The best software for accomplishing this is called
Email Marketing Director from Arial Software (
www.ArialSoftware.com), which was actually designed by Mike Adams and is used by NaturalNews to email readers.
What ad ideas work best?One clever way to produce really phenomenal ad results is to
use a YouTube video thumbnail as your ad, encouraging people to click the thumbnail to watch your YouTube video. That video can explain your product or service and give viewers your home page web address. Or you can just embed a YouTube video on your landing page and set it to auto-play status so it instantly beings playing when a visitor clicks on the ad and arrives at your landing page.
People like to watch interesting videos, so if you can frame your product or services information inside an entertaining or unique video, you will likely get a LOT of people wanting to watch it. For such videos, your clickthrough rate can be unusually high. Whether those people actually become customers of yours, however, depends entirely on what you're offering and how entertaining your video really is.
Successful advertising with NaturalNews requires that you plan and engineer the entire process, from the ad click to the e-commerce action. Just bringing people to your home page is usually not sufficient. You usually have to bring them to an action page and give them a specific offer, or coupon code, or point them to a specific product or service page.
What are NaturalNews readers like?NaturalNews readers are among the very BEST informed (and most intelligent) readers on the internet. If your company is engaged in "greenwashing" (trying to appear green while you're really not), you'll get clobbered by NaturalNews readers.
Virtually ALL NaturalNews readers will read the ingredients of your products before buying. So if your ingredients label contains complex chemicals, you probably shouldn't advertise on NaturalNews. Only truly natural, eco-friendly, nutrition-friendly companies will do well on NaturalNews. And frankly, we simply won't run ads that contradict a natural lifestyle, regardless of how much revenue is at stake.
Have questions? Email us at ads@naturalnews.com to learn more.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher, author and award-winning journalist with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is a trusted, independent journalist who receives no money or promotional fees whatsoever to write about other companies' products. In 2010, Adams co-founded NaturalNews.TV, a natural health video sharing site that has now grown in popularity. He's also the CEO of a highly successful email newsletter software company that develops software used to send permission email campaigns to subscribers. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and martial arts training. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org
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Saturday, February 28, 2009
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