Pay Per Play Audio Ads – The Next Big Thing?

When I first heard about these new ads my first thought was, “ya right, as if music blasting every time I visit a MySpace page isn’t bad enough, imagine an advertisement!”

But then I remembered a post by Darren @ ProBlogger’s post called How Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bath Water Earned me Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars. When I read that post is did hit home. I have, quite a few times emphasized the negative aspects of my first impressions when something new came along and decided to dismiss it, or take a wait and see approach.

So, when I heard about Pay Per Play ads, I had the same sorts of negative impressions going on inside me. Like I mentioned above images of horrid MySpace pages flashed in my mind. But remembering Darren’s advice, I decided to check them out.

Surprisingly, when I read the site and listened to the sample ads I was won over.

They are called Net Audio Ads and they are essentially 5 second contextual audio (voice) ads that play when a page is loaded.

View the Signup Page

They are compatible with AdSense and the publisher is paid per pay, no click or any other action is required from the site visitor.

Are They Effective?

I was amazed at how they caught my attention and drew my focus away from a standard visual orientation to a listening mode. This was especially true when the advertiser was a well known creditable national brand.

QUESTION: How have these 5 second audio ads been performing for advertisers?

ANSWER: We have consistently outperformed, radio, television and paper ads plus the fact that we spider the website just like Google does, we only deliver ads that are directly related to the contextual nature of the site.

What Problem Do They Solve?

When I started the dream of my blog network, I realized that the real money was to be made if I could scale up to having enough sites to attract major advertisers.

Ironically, the web is fantastic for long tail approach to advertising, but it isn’t that well suited to traditional mass marketing. It is relatively easy to market Bart Simpson’s Fimo charms online, but it is much tougher for Ford to advertise it’s latest car model. On the web it can be tough to scale out to the masses.

That’s one of the main problem that Net Voice Ads is trying to solve. Unlike AdSense and other contextual ads, Net Voice Ads don’t need to be strictly contextual to be successful. Since they briefly pull you out of ‘text mode’ and grab you attention via the human voice.

How Are They Different?

That is the most interesting question with these type of ads and the reason that I’m glad I followed Darren’s tip and gave them a try. The audio ads are different because of the human voice. The voice ads are much more powerful than text based ads (for certain types of advertising at least).

Text ads are excellent when the advertiser wants you to click through to their site or offer page. But does Coca Cola care if you come to their website, or Budweiser, or Taco Bell?

Not so much. They care about brand re-enforcement and this type of opportunity has been lacking on the web.

Are Audio Ads Better Than Video?

It occurs to me that voice or audio ads may have a distinct advantage over video ads. Like I have mentioned above, voice ads are secondary to the text on the page. You can listen to them and still read the web page you were on, with a video you require 100% attention, therefore the content of a video has to be far more engaging to create an effective ad and even then you are still competing, every second, with the many other possible information sources on a web page.

First Impressions:

The leader of “Audio Ads…” and then a beep before the actual ad plays seems unnecessary. Imagine when you’re watching TV, a one second “This is a commercial…” BEEP playing before each ad, that would make it worse and more intrusive.

On the web, people are more ‘touchy’ about advertising, so I guess some type of message indicating an ad is required, maybe we can just loose the “BEEP”.

Since the opportunity is brand new, things are a little rough around the edges behind the scenes. Also, they require you to post the audio code on your site (presumably for free) from now until Feb 1, as they try and establish an auditable user base, which they can then use to sell the “numbers” to advertisers. As they are targeting larger companies, these type of stats are necessary.

Yes, there will be push back on these type of ads, people crying out “oh, my god they’re so intrusive!” but that has been the case with every new ad format.

Bonus Training

These ads are being promoted by Charles Hefflin, the creator of University 20/20, who is friend of mine and a long time and well respected Internet Marketer.

One of the hidden bonuses of the program is that Charles provide a complete set of online marketing training lessons to ensure the publishers have success. These lessons are very similar to the training at University 20/20, so this is a decent value just for signing up as a publisher for these ads (which is free).

Conclusions

I think that these audio ads may just be the Internet’s real banner ads. Meaning that they can accomplish what the banner ad attempted and never could in terms of branding for larger advertisers.

I urge you to give them a look, and don’t make my previous mistake of judging something new without giving it a try. One of the success lessons that I’ve learned recently is it is irrelevant what I think, try new ideas and let your customers (or the market) tell you what works and what doesn’t.

Due to the 2 level payout system, there is a big opportunity here. Since the ads and the affiliate program has only been live for just over an hour, you can get in at the top of the food chain and promote this system. Since they have had a low key launch many of the top Internet marketers have not even heard of it, if you can pull someone influential in, you could literally make a mint.

For lot’s more information take a look at the signup page.

More Facts & Figures

QUESTION: Will this offend or cause people to not come to my website due to the audio ads?

ANSWER: We are currently running these ads on 550,000 web pages, because the ad spot is only 5 seconds, complaints have been rare.

QUESTION: What is the compensation structure for this program?

ANSWER:

• 25% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads you serve on your own website(s).
• 5% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads played on the website(s) of those you refer.
• 5% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads played on the website(s) that your direct referrals bring on board.

QUESTION: How is it that publishers get to keep 100% of their traffic (by not requiring a click)? Aren’t you losing money?

ANSWER: This is a common misunderstanding and this is why PPP is so revolutionary. The advertiser has paid to have a 5 second audio ad played on your website. You are paid just for the ad playing, no clicks or action from the website visitor is necessary.

We are not losing money, we actually make more because the ad is triggered on 100% of the website’s traffic. In essence the website owner is then paid for 100% of their traffic.

Best of all, the visitor never leaves your website so you have the chance to monetize even more. All other forms of media require a click or some kind of action that leads people away from a website. As you can see PPP is quite different.

QUESTION: Is Net Voice Ads accepting new members directly, can I start making money with PPP before February 1st?

ANSWER: No, up until the first of February we are establishing the marketing foot print. All major advertising sellers live and die by published results. During the expansion phase BPA will be conducting the audit and validation of traffic and publishing the findings.

QUESTION: Can I hear examples of what my websites visitors may hear?

ANSWER: Yes, click here

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