What is CPM: A Complete Guide

What is a CPM?

A common CPM definition falls below:

CPM is a commonly used measurement within online advertising as well as radio, television, and print media meaning “cost per mille” or “cost per thousand.” 

In other words, the CPM definition is how much money a publisher makes off of posting 1000 advertisements for a certain amount of viewers. 

What is a CPM Calculation?

A common calculation for CPM includes the following:

1.       Total Cost of Running the Advertisement: $10,000

2.       The estimated amount of viewers: 1,500,000

What is CPM total: ($10,000 / 1,500,000) X 1000= $6.67 per thousand views

What is CPM Standard Formatting?

The Interactive Advertising Bureau is mainly responsible for establishing the CPM definition for advertisement formats and more.  The IAB is made up of more than 500 media and technology companies that sell about 86% of all online advertising in the United States.  The IAB recommends standards and practices for interactive advertising, and the Bureau is headquartered in New York City and has an office in Washington, D.C.

What is CPM Advertising and how does it compare to CPC (Cost per Click) Advertising?

Another CPM definition includes a pricing model that charges advertiser for impressions (the number of time people view the advertisement).  The main problem with the CPM definition is that advertisers are charged even if the target audience fails to click on the advertisement.

CPC advertising is sometimes preferred by advertisers because the advertiser is only charged with the consumer clicks on the advertisement.  The only problem with CPC advertising is that keywords used in such advertising have become extremely expensive to bid on—especially in the legal field. You’ve likely seen legal advertisements on a search engine after searching for a legal term or service.  The CPC ads that appear on the first results page are extremely expensive and can make up a large percentage of the firm’s advertising budget.

What is a CPM Targeted Campaign?

A targeted CPM is somewhat of a new CPM definition.  More and more websites have turned to what is a CPM target campaign instead of a simple banner advertisement.  A targeted CPM model includes the following:

·         gives the advertiser the option to include a small graphic or logo in the text

·         unlike PPC ads, a targeted CPM format allows for only a few ads on a page to increase visibility

·         the CPM advertising model still works on keywords

·         impressions, clickthroughs and even conversions are tracked with CPM

·         a CPM advertisement can often be changed

What is CPM Pricing History?

According to a CPM definition for pricing from MediaLife Magazine in 1998 to 1999, the rates dropped from $45 to $39.  In just two years, MediaPost provided a CPM definition for the price of banner ads, which had dropped as far as $5. Although the prices for what is a CPM advertisement have dropped significantly in just over 10 years, some CPMs remain fairly high for highly targeted websites. 

What is CPM Preferable Formatting?

According to the IAD, the total amount of revenue from ad formatting in 2011 totaled $31.7 billion.  The most common types of ad formats include the following, and the most common is listed at the top:

·         search 47%

·         display/banner 22%

·         classifieds 8%

·         digital video 6%

·         lead generation 5%

·         mobile 5%

·         rich media 4%

·         sponsorship 4%

·         email 1%

What is CPM Advertising?

Several different types of advertisements and the CPM definition are provided below:

What is a CPM Display?

This CPM definition includes  an advertiser that pays a legal website for a space to display a static, hyperlinked, or logo ad on one or more of the pages.

What is CPM Sponsorship?

This CPM definition includes custom content for the advertiser which may or may not include different elements of advertising.  Spotlight sponsorship may include a custom built page; advergaming may include buying slots around a game; content & section may include a particular section of the website or email; sweepstakes & contests may include a branded contest with submissions and more.

What is CPM Emailing?

The email CPM definition may include banner ads, links, email marketing campaigns, or other types of email communications.

What is a CPM Search Ad?

A CPM definition for a Search ad includes several different types of lists or links that the advertiser pays firms to link their ad to certain domain names or specific search words.  The different types are explained below:

1.       paid listings- test appears at the top or side of search results

2.       contextual search- text appears in the article based on the content of the article

3.       paid inclusion- listing is determined by search algorithms

4.       site optimization- modifies a site to allow search engine to automatically index the site

What is CPM Rich Media?

A good CPM definition for this type of advertisement includes advertisements that allow for animation and/or interactivity.  This advertisement can also occur on a banner, button, or an interstitial.

What is a CPM Digital Commercial?

The CPM definition for this type of advertisement includes a TV-like advertisement that appears as an in-page video commercial before, during, or after a certain amount of content is obtained by the viewer.  The direct form as to what is a CPM digital is abstract and may include live, archived or downloadable content.

What is CPM Mobile Advertising?

The CPM definition for mobile advertising is when the content is adjusted and delivered through a mobile device such as a smart phone or a tablet.  A CPM advertisement over a mobile device will usually take the form of a mobile website, mobile app, or text message. 

What is CPM: Conclusion

The  question to what is a CPM advertisement is complicated, and prices for different kinds of a CPM definition can greatly vary.  Most of the major providers for online advertising like Google and Yahoo operate under PPC advertising (pay per click), but CPM is still a popular option for certain kinds of advertising. 

From a website designed to connect a few thousand college students with each other, Facebook has grown into a multinational behemoth with nearly 1 billion users worldwide.  This popularity may make you wonder if your law firm should put ads on Facebook.  You may be asking: “How do Facebook ads work?”  Wonder no longer—this guide will lead you through the basic types of ads on Facebook and how to get the most from your budget for Facebook ads.

Types of Ads on Facebook: The Sidebar Ad

One of the easiest ways to start using Facebook ads is to run advertisements on the sidebar.  You can go from not knowing how do Facebook ads work to using them consistently in your advertising strategy within days by mastering these tools.

When you post sidebar ads on Facebook, it's a little bit like paying for clicks using a service like Google AdWords.  In fact, you'll pay for clicks in much the same way, but you won't pay for exactly the same kind of targeting.  Instead of paying for particular search keywords, because Facebook is based on people, not searches, you choose what kind of people you want to advertise to.

This demographic based search can help you to divide your ads on Facebook.  You can get a good feel for how do Facebook ads work for targeting on the website itself.  You'll see a lot of ways to target your Facebook ads, and can start to think about who's likely to want what kind of message.

The greatest thing about learning how do Facebook ads work is that you'll be able to post so many different ad campaigns to so many different types of people.  This kind of segmentation is key to creating great ads on Facebook—don't try to make Facebook ads that appeal to everyone.  Make them appeal to one key demographic, and then use them accordingly.

How Do Facebook Ads Work: The Sponsored Story

The answer to “how do Facebook ads work?” has actually changed significantly in recent years.  A few years ago, sidebar ads were just about the only kind of ads on Facebook.  Today, though, a new kind of advertising, the sponsored story, has begun.

If you're now wondering how do Facebook ads work for this kind of story, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised.  Your Facebook ads can now appear directly in someone's news feed as a story.  This makes conversions much more likely.

How do Facebook ads work for targeting, when they're sponsored stories?  About the same way.  This means you can also target your ads on Facebook to show up on the news feeds of your friends, fans, and their friends.  This kind of connections-based marketing is a great way to make sure your Facebook ads are seen by as many people as possible.

How Do Facebook Ads Work: Poll Ads

Another kind of interesting Facebook ad is the poll ad.  Sponsored polls are a great way to attract attention and clicks with your ads on Facebook—by opening up a question for responses, you're doing what social media does best.

Poll ads are one of the best examples of how do Facebook ads work differently from other social media advertising.  Very few other advertising platforms give you the kind of versatility that Facebook offers, and very few give so much opportunity for potential clients to interact with your advertisement.

How Do Facebook Ads Work: Video Advertising

If figuring out “how do Facebook ads work?” is seeming overwhelming, perhaps Youtube's more your style.  If you can make a video recording, you can easily post it on Youtube.  While Youtube videos aren't technically ads on Facebook, you can use them in much the same way, posting them to your news feed.

You may also want to try recording video responses to questions that you have seen asked in Facebook comments.  These video responses are a great way to engage with potential customers without even paying for ads on Facebook.  Research has shown over and over again that ads and websites with videos are much more likely to convert new clients than those without video recordings.

Trends in Ads on Facebook

Right now, more and more Facebook ads are going mobile.  Mobile optimized ads on Facebook are a great way to appeal to a broad young demographic that increasingly uses mobile phones for multiple hours a day.  If you want to learn how do Facebook ads work on the mobile app, try downloading it onto your own smartphone or tablet PC and looking at where the different types of ads appear.

Sponsored story mobile app Facebook ads can have a click rate that's up to to ten times higher than the click rate on the desktop version of Facebook's website.  This means that if you have a client base that is at all likely to use smartphones, you need to be taking advantage of mobile ads on Facebook.

One of the other biggest trends in Facebook advertising is hyperlocal advertising.  When you're doing ads on Facebook, you will be able to actually target your advertisements on a particular location, or even a certain zip code.  When combined with mobile targeting, this becomes even better: you can target people who are driving or walking near your office right now.

Checking the Performance of Your Facebook Ads

It's never a good idea to just trust that your ads on Facebook are working exactly as expected.  Instead, you should routinely use some sort of analytics program to help you understand what's working and what needs improvement.  Your goal with analytics should be to continuously improve your Facebook ads.

Testing a wide range of audiences for your ads on Facebook can help you identify new target audiences.  It's also great for noticing new trends that may have to do with the time of day, the day of the week, or even the changing seasons.  A wide variety of free tools can help you interpret the data you get about your Facebook ads.

Essential Information on Cost per Impression Rates

Cost Per Impression Rates

There is no definite cost per impression average for legal websites, but there are ways to use a CPM calculator to determine how much revenue your website is bringing in compared to other forms of advertising or how much money you’re spending on your advertising campaign. 

In this article, you can find information about a CPM calculator, and you can also find information on cost per impression rates on certain networks, as well as making adjustments based upon your calculations. 

A Quick Look at your Cost per Impression Average

When using a CPM calculator, a simple equation will usually help you determine a cost per impression average:

Total site revenue / total site page views X 1,000= CPM average

An impression is when a reader views the advertisement, whether that ad is a banner ad, text ad, video, etc.  There are two ways the advertisements can occur.  An advertisement can be placed on a website or several different pages for a certain amount of time, and the advertisement can be loaded a certain amount of times—both of which can affect the CPM calculator.

Additionally, you may be able to buy a certain amount of ad impressions and the advertisement will be loaded a certain amount of times.  Each type of advertisement will  affect your cost per impression rates. 

Examples of a Cost per Impression Average

The following examples highlight how a CPM calculator can work:

1.       A website generates $5,000 in revenue in a month and the page receives 500,000 views in a month.  The cost per impression average for the website would be $10.

2.       A smaller website generates $1,000 in revenue and has 50,000 views a month.  Therefore, the cost per impression average for the website is $20. 

Cost per Impression Rates and Cost per Visitor

In addition to calculating a simple cost per impression average, you should try to figure out the cost for every conversion.  There is a simple method to figure out this calculation, and the data can add analysis to your CPM calculator. 

Let’s say that you’ve received 1818 clicks on the CPM advertisement in the last month, you spent $4,700 on the campaign thus far, and there were a total amount of 198 conversions.  With this data, you can calculate the ad spends per visitor, the conversion rate, and the ad spends per conversion.  Such information would yield the following information:

Ad Spend Per Visitor: $2.59

Conversion Rate: 10.89%

Ad Spend Per Conversion: $23.78

Once you’ve used the data to figure out the ad spend per visitor and per conversion, you can use the same data to convert back to a cost per impression average.  If your data reflects that you should be spending less on cost per impression rates, you should talk with the agency about negotiating prices.  If the agency cannot adjust rates to lower the cost per impression average, you should consider checking into other agencies that are willing to offer better prices. 

Advertisement Sizes and Cost per Impression Rates

The size of the advertisement is likely to influence the CPM calculator as well.  There are certain kinds of common advertising sizes, but others are not standard and may greatly affect the cost per impression average.  The types of sizes are explained below:

1.       Leaderboards (728×90 pixels): this is the most common type of web advertisement and not likely to increase your cost per impression rates.  These types of advertisements stretch across the top or bottom of a page and make up as much as 30% of all internet ads.

2.       Medium/Large Rectangles (300×250 and 336×280): this type of ad can greatly reduce the cost per impression average because the advertisement is intended to interrupt the text and the paragraph is positioned around the advertisement.  You may notice a reduction in the CPM calculator because readers are more likely to click on the ad if they read around it.

3.       Skyscraper (120×600): these types of ads are also common and lay on the left or right side of the screen.  These ads can either increase or decrease cost per impression rates.

4.       Non-Standard: a non-standard ad may affect your CPM calculator positively because the ads may stand out from other ads.

5.       Full Banner (468×60): these advertisements look like small leaderboards and can increase or decrease the cost per impression average depending on their placement.

6.       Button (120×90 or 120×60): these ads usually only provide a link to another site and can increase or decrease your cost per impression rates depending on their position.

Can I use a CPM calculator on Facebook?

If you’re considering running an advertisement on Facebook, the website provides specific software to help you determine your cost per impression rates. 

If you simply want an estimate for cost per impression average, you can skip the process above and simply type in “test copy” in the blank space.  Then, you’ll want to take the following steps to use the CPM calculator:

1.       Enter your accurate targeting criteria, and the tool on Facebook will use this information to estimate a bid range for your advertising.

2.       This step, called “Pricing,” will give you a suggested bid which helps you estimate the total cost of reaching your intended audience. 

When using the CPM calculator on Facebook, know that the amount you are charged can never exceed your daily or lifetime budget. 

Conclusion on a CPM Calculator

Every CPM calculator will yield a different cost per impression average.  If you notice noticeable differences in cost per impression rates from the software you’re using and the agency’s software, you need to notify the agency immediately.  If they accept that their cost per impression average is off, they may offer certain discounts. 

Only 60 percent of American companies are using any kind of professional link building.  For lawyers, that number is even lower, and with good reason.  Many of the strategies for complete link building that were advocated even a few years ago may have made your web pages look better for search engines, but worse to real human beings.  In this guide, you'll learn why that has changed, and why today there are more ways to do real, professional link building than ever.

Why Not All Link Building Looks Professional or Ethical

The idea of doing complete link building on your own or with a service may already make you skeptical.  Many of the web's earliest professional link building companies were not particularly good at creating quality links, just a huge quantity that improved a website's Google PageRank and helped it climb into the top page of search results for many keywords.

As a result, many of these backlinks actually went through very shady websites—some with spyware or viruses, others selling everything from pornography to erectile dysfunction pills on the same page where attorney links were being distributed.  This kind of “wild west” era in the web is over, and today's complete link building strategies regard it as best forgotten.

What does this mean for your professional link building efforts?  Well, there's good news and bad news.  The good news is, if you are already good at marketing, you're now on equal footing with everyone else when you do professional link building for your firm.  The bad news is you may want to hire a complete link building service to help you understand what you're doing.

Your Blog: A Lawyer's Best Professional Link Building Resource

With hundreds of thousands of attorneys getting new business from blogs, it's surprising that any lawyer still remains blogless.  Not only can blogs help you to create great search engine optimization opportunities for your website, they're also the single best way for you to start getting the backlinks you need.

Typically, when someone links to one of your blog posts, they'll link to your firm's website as well as the post itself.  Complete link building is even easier if you're also willing to guest blog on other people's websites.  Remember to return the favor, at least sometimes, and invite other attorneys to guest blog on your site too.

You may also want to try using video blogging rather than traditional blogging to do more complete link building.  Video can help attract a different audience than just text blogging, and video content is significantly more likely than text to go viral.  Whenever your content goes viral, you've got a professional link building success on your hands—this will usually lead to multiple links from high-quality websites.

Interacting With the Blogosphere: Tips and Tricks

Ideally, if your blog is part of your complete link building solution, you shouldn't just be posting—you should also be reading and participating in the greater blog community.  Before you take that plunge, though, there are a few things you should know.

DO read blogs that are a few steps removed from your own field of practice.  These attorneys may have areas that intersect with yours, and you could have a professional link building opportunity by guest blogging about those intersections later on.  What's more, by building these relationships, you can get new client referrals.

DON'T confine yourself even just to law blogs.  Remember that marketing blogs can teach you about many topics, from complete link building to the newest search engine optimization techniques.  Other types of blogs may just belong to regular people in your area—but they're still worth it if your practice is consumer-focused.

DO make relevant, thoughtful comments on blogs and leave your website's URL at the bottom of them.

DON'T have just your URL as the entire text of your comment, or leave mass quantities of copied and pasted generic comments in many blogs.

DO make video responses to other video blog entries on YouTube—this is a great part of a complete link building strategy.

DON'T stifle comments unless they're defamatory or spam.  Discussion is great for professional link building; you want to encourage it!

Creating Professional Link Building Opportunities With the Press

Some people today ignore the offline world when they start doing professional link building.  But look where most blogs originally get their content—the same old fashioned media that many people are giving up on today.  You can get a leg up on the competition by talking to television news producers, radio stations, and newspaper writers about legal topics.

You may even be able to get an op-ed or letter to the editor published in a local newspaper.  Then, try linking a copy of it (either an online copy or a nice looking scanned copy of the newspaper edition) through Facebook or LinkedIn.  People like to see some offline content to seed the online world, and you may be surprised how many people share the image or link.

Hiring Services for Complete Link Building

While professional link building services in the past have gotten a bad rap, there are still good services working for law firms right now.  Outsourcing your link building to a complete link building solutions provider can ensure that you'll be able to work as much as you need to on other firm business.

Ask any professional link building service you're planning to hire about their strategies.  If you see similar strategies to the ones advocated here—organic complete link building, working on blogs, social networking sites, and so on—they're using up to date information.  

If they're still talking about article marketing, article spinning, or paid for links, you don't necessarily need to run in the other direction—but I'd walk pretty fast if I were you.  These techniques could actually hurt your law firm, and you need to stay as far away from them as possible if you want to have a successful legal website.

Proven Techniques to Increase CPM Marketing

CPM Marketing is most Likely to Increase Brand Exposure

CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) is usually intended to enhance the brand of your firm instead of leading to a large amount of click through rates, and Michael Fleischner, the Marketing Director of Peterson’s, states that display ads such as CPM ads only produce a 0.1% to 0.3 click through rate. 

The good news is that the price of marketing for CPM advertisement has drastically decreased since the mid-1990s, but the decrease may not last for long because certain networks like Facebook and others have seen huge increases in CPM marketing costs.

Different Kinds of Ads to Increase CPM Marketing

The right kind of advertisement may not only increase the reputation of your firm but click through rates as well.  The following types of ads can help marketing for CPM:

Static Ads for CPM Marketing

Static display ads have been around the longest, and they offer no interaction to the consumer.  These are simple images, but they can combine both images and text to showcase a professional advertisement and increase the marketing of CPM. 

Animated Ads and CPM Marketing

An animated ad will incorporate animation in a flash format or .GIF format.  A publisher will normally restrict the amount of time the animation can loop on the website, as well as the file size of the animation.  With such marketing for CPM, the designer can choose to animate part of the ad while keeping the rest static or animate the entire ad if they choose. 

Interactive Ads and CPM Marketing

Attorneys and law firms need to be careful with interactive advertising.  Too much animation and interaction may indicate to the consumer that the firm is unprofessional.  In order to portray professional through the marketing of CPM, include interaction for acceptable information like email addresses, addresses, etc. 

The advertisement usually turns on after the curser moves over the ad or rests on the ad for a certain amount of time.  An interactive advertisement is normally limited depending on the file sizes allowed by the publisher’s website.

Video Ads and CPM Marketing

Video ads have become increasingly popular over the last couple of years and can add largely to click through rates.  The video can add a more direct approach to your ad copy, and the video may be activated in several different ways.  For example, the video may start automatically once the reader reaches the website, or the video may be user activated. 

Expanding Ads and CPM Marketing

This is one technique that can dramatically increase marketing for CPM.  Expanding ads usually activate when the reader clicks or rolls over the cursor, and the amount of expansion may vary as well.  The most important factor for expanding ads is that they can provide a larger amount of information without the user having to actually visit the website.  Once the reader reviews the expanded ad, they may find that the website would benefit their research or legal needs.

Increasing Clickthrough Rates with Marketing for CPM Advertisements

CPM advertisements can be used by attorneys in two ways: they can use outside ads on their website to generate profits from advertising, or they can create CPM ads to post on other websites and increase brand exposure.  Although branding is the largest benefit of CPM marketing, certain techniques can increase traffic to an attorney’s actual website and increase clientele as well. 

Some of the best techniques of marketing CPM ads for click through rates include using one of the formats listed in the last section and the following:

1.       Hire a professional graphic artist: you don’t necessarily need to make a make an artistic advertisement, but good marketing for CPM ads includes choosing the right colors, the placement of certain images, and more.  The services of a graphic artist are fairly cheap, and the professional help can have surprising results for your CPM marketing campaign.

2.       Keep the ad copy brief and interesting: the most successful ad copy keeps a simple and direct statement that encourages click through.  For example, you may have some CPM ads that simply enhance your brand, but others ads may encourage, for example, discounts if the consumer visits your website.  You could possibly offer a free consultation and list the discount in the advertisement.

3.       Test several different ads: CPM marketing consists of slow but important changes to your ad to increase client interest.  You should test several different ads and make changes about every three days to see how the results are working.  If you want to make a change, make only one change to the advertisement at a time and see how the changes have worked over a span of several days.

4.       Consider the file size: marketing CPM ads includes making sure those ads can appear even for the readers who are on the website for a short amount of time.  If your advertisement is large in size, the file may take a large amount of time to load.  A conservative estimate for a banner advertisement is about 15k to 20k.

If you’re planning to use your advertisement on a certain website or group of websites, you should consider an important CPM marketing technique and adjust the advertisement each website.  Additionally, if you are using a social networking service for marketing CPM advertisements, you should take certain steps to ensure the advertisement is adjusted to the specific social network. 

Conclusion for CPM Marketing

Although the marketing for CPM is usually intended to increase brand awareness, the right CPM ads can also lead to a significant amount of click through rates.  You can find information on this website about CPM marketing on social media like Facebook that can increase the number of click through rates. 

CPM Scheduling and Applicability in Legal Fields

What is a CPM Schedule?

A CPM schedule stands for “critical path method” and is an algorithm for the scheduling several different project requirements at a time in order to reach an intended goal.  A CPM scheduling model has three basic requirements:

1.       A list of all activities that are required to complete the project (usually formed in a work breakdown structure)

2.       The time required to complete each activity

3.       The dependencies between all activities

A Simple CPM Schedule Diagram

By using the values listed above, CPM scheduling calculates the longest and shortest path to the end of a project as well as the maximum amount of time an activity can take to complete without affecting a deadline. 

How does CPM scheduling apply to the legal field?

CPM scheduling relates to the legal field because there are strict deadlines within litigation and other types of settlements.  For example, if the prosecution is working on a high profile case and has 7 months to prepare for the trial, they need to break up their activities among the team and make sure all duties are performed and completed on time. 

Some of the activities may include gathering evidence, gathering expert testimony and witnesses, forming planned responses, forming a jury, calculating a planned settlement, and more.  Each of these steps requires a certain amount of time, and some steps may require more time than others.  By using a strict CPM schedule, the prosecution team can make sure they have all necessary tasks completed by the deadline. 

What happens if there are changes to the CPM schedule?

Any small change within CPM scheduling will have a ripple effect throughout the entire project.  If there are delays within certain tasks, the CPM schedule will have to be adjusted to stay within the same deadline.  This is a common practice within the legal field because there may be delays in gathering evidence or locating and speaking with witnesses.  The right management techniques can promote diligence within projects, but a legal team will often expect delays. 

What is a Work Breakdown Structure and how does it relate to CPM Scheduling?

A work breakdown schedule (WBS) incorporates all the work required for the project to reach completion.  There are some general rules associated with WBS in a CPM schedule, and these rules are listed below:

·         no single activity or group of activities to create a single outcome should last more than 80 hours

·         no series of activities should last longer than a reporting period, i.e. if the reporting period is 3 weeks, no activity should last longer than

3 weeks

Within CPM scheduling, an activity or task should also contain the following attributes:

·         the results can be estimated and measured

·         there is no sense to breakdown the task anymore

·         the task can be completed while following the two rules listed above

·         the work can be split up and outsourced

What are the most common mistakes in CPM Scheduling?

There a several common mistakes that can occur in a CPM schedule—especially in the legal field.  These common mistakes in CPM scheduling are listed below:

Lack of commitment from the project team

This type of mistake within a CPM schedule for a legal project is often the most common.  For example, let’s say there are several lead attorneys and they have hired any number of private attorneys to perform research for the case. 

Important Display Advertising Trends for 2012

Updated Reports from Google on Display Advertising Trends

On May 29, 2012, Google released a detailed report on display advertising trends happening across a large percentage of the internet.  Some of the most important findings of the report on display advertising services are listed below:

1.       468×60 banner ads only accounted for about 3% of accessed impressions

2.       Display advertising services for mobile devices grew 250% between just the third and fourth quarters in 2011, and estimates show the numbers are only set to increase in 2012

Additionally, Google released information on the most common types of impressions accessed in 2011, and the display advertising trends saw the most impressions in the list below (from most popular to least popular):

So what do the display advertising trends mean to legal fields?

According to the same study released by Google, the amount of display advertising within the legal field only ranked 21 out of 25 industries.  The results are surprising considering the amount of legal advertising out there, and one of the main reasons for the low ranking is that many legal companies have failed to adapt to trends and embrace new types of display advertising services. 

The rest of this article will suggest display advertising services that more legal companies should embrace in order to reach more potential during the coming years. 

Step #1: Start Remarketing your Services

Legal companies need to start using display advertising services to target specific groups of clients.  Display advertising trends show that the following techniques can improve awareness:

1.       Market your services to different demographics: law firms should consider marketing their services differently for men and women. 

2.       Provide different messages: have a general message on your homepage and other messages to clients on pages that detail your services. 

3.       Expand your sources: display advertising trends indicate that YouTube is attracting more and more clients.  Try to use display

advertising services on the main website and the landing pages as well. 

Step #2: Start using video if you haven’t already

Display advertising trends indicate that video on both desktops and mobile devices is drawing in more clients than ever.  In order adjust to display advertising trends and increase your video exposure, use the following techniques and more:

1.       Use AdWords to quickly create videos.  Put you’re your videos in click-to-play or TrueView in-display format across Google to enhance your exposure. 

2.       Use display advertising services that use rich media along with video instead of Flash.

Step #3: Consider Social Media Ads

Display advertising trends have seen the importance of display advertising services on social media for a couple of years now.  In order to achieve your visibility over social media, consider the following techniques:

1.       Provide links within all videos to social networking websites.  Display advertising trends indicate that asking clients to respond about the ads on social media can increase brand exposure and positive reviews about your services. 

2.       Put social media endorsements within the advertisement as well.  Clients will automatically know that you have a social media website which shows a commitment to exposure and updated information to the public.

Step #4: Go Mobile with your Display Advertising Services

Display advertising trends indicate mobile display advertising services are the fastest growing services out there.  While adjusting your display advertising services for mobile devices, consider the following options:

1.       Adjust your display advertising services for tablets: display advertising trends indicate that tablet users are more likely to respond to image ads instead of text ads.  Most of the ads that were clicked on by tablet users were banner ads with creative and striking graphics. 

2.       Adjust your display advertising services for smartphones: display advertising trends indicate that more and more people are using their smartphones for internet usage instead of their regular desktop.  There are multiple display advertising services offered for mobile devices, and you’ll have to decide what type of advertisements are best for your firm. 

More Display Advertising Trends from Google on Ad Sizes

According to Google, there are over 1000 ad sizes that are currently used on the internet.  Unique sizes generated over 1 million impressions in 2011, but many of the hits on the unique sizes occurred because of a drop in traditional sizes like 468×60 and 120×600.  The most common accessed sizes of display advertising services were the medium rectangle, the leaderboard and the skyscraper. 

Additionally, according to Google, the 300×250 medium rectangles increased 12% leaderboard advertisements and there was an 18% increase in skyscraper formats in 2011 alone.  Google also reports that the top three sizes make up about 95% of all impressions accessed by the public. 

More Display Advertising Trends on Videos

Google reports that video impressions grew about 70% in the second half of 2011 with the double click platform.  Additionally, about 79% of videos were run until the midpoint and about 72% of in-stream video ads were completed.

About 51% of all video advertisement ran 15 to 30 seconds, while about 36% were more than 30 seconds.  Around 13% ran for less than 15 seconds.  So what does the data say about video ads?  Get the important information across as soon as possible!

Conclusion

Law firms need to adjust their display advertising services while following Rules of Professional Conduct.  Without meeting display advertising trends, the number of ads viewed by clients will decrease.  Firms should stay updated on display advertising trends as well and constantly adjust their display advertising services in the next couple of years while still relying on advertisement offline as well. 

What is Display Advertising: Types, the Benefits, and the Disadvantages

What is Display Advertising?

Display advertising is used as an advertising medium on the internet where messages in various forms can appear on websites or on the results page of a search engine.  Although display advertising is only one of your options, Yahoo Advertising Solutions reports that spending on paid ads such as advertising displays will rise 23.3% in 2012 alone. 

Yahoo also reports disadvantages associated with advertising displays on the internet.  About 31% or 1.8 billion advertising displays fail to impress a single client, so many firms are throwing money away with failed advertising techniques. 

What is Display Advertising: Types of Display Advertising

Apart from simple advertising displays like banners, leaders’ boards, skyscrapers, boxes, and others, there are many other types that can enhance a firm’s advertising campaign.  Some different types of display advertising are explained below:

What is display advertising: Pop-Up Ads

Pop-Up advertising displays can come in several different forms, including hover ads, floating ads or slide ads.  The use of these  ads has decreased dramatically because of pop-up blockers often used by most computers. 

What is display advertising: Flash/DHTML Ads

Many legal websites have begun to replace pop-up ads with flash display advertising.  Flash ads will involve flash animation and although they can come in traditional sizes and pixels, many of these advertising displays are becoming more and more sophisticated. 

What is display advertising: Video Ads

Video display advertising has exploded in popularity in the last couple of years—especially in the legal field.  These advertising displays can run on the legal website or a legal website’s video ad can run between videos on a website.  Major networks such as Google, YouTube, Yahoo, MSN, and others commonly use video display advertising. 

What is display advertising: Interstitial Ads

These advertising displays have also become more popular over the last couple of years.  You may notice these kinds of ads if you click on a link and an ad appears on the screen.  The advertising displays usually offer the potential client a choice to progress to the website or wait a certain amount of seconds before they are automatically directed to the website. 

What is display advertising: Text Ads

This term can seem ambiguous.  In one form, a text ad appears as a simple display of text with a hyperlink to the advertiser’s website.  However, in display advertising, a text ad is a message that is sent out to any number of mobile devices.  You may notice these advertising displays if you download a free app on a phone. 

What is display advertising: Email Ads

In this type of display advertising, an advertiser can either individually sponsor an email or purchase space within the email.  These types of ads are common within newsletters and other related emails. 

What is display advertising: Advertorials

This type of display advertising will appear in an editorial form and will often contain objective opinions about the legal website’s products and services.  Many networks will structure and write the advertorial and place it on their ad network. 

What is Display Advertising: Benefits?

There are numerous advantages to display advertising, and if you have a smart advertising campaign for your firm, the benefits will often outweigh the disadvantages.  Advertising displays may have the following benefits:

·         the ability to reach a large audience, even with a small budget

·         you may begin to see immediate results from the display advertising

·         you can often target your campaign to the best audience by placing ads on appropriate websites

·         by choosing the right keywords, you can improve your visibility on search engines like Google

·         you can increase brand awareness with the advertising displays even if clients don’t click on the advertisements

·         the results of your display advertising on the internet can be easily tracked with the right analytics software, and you can make changes based on the results

What is Display Advertising: Disadvantages?

Advertising displays have the potential of have very little click through rates in some cases.  For example, many banner ads have a click through rate of about .05% or even less.  Additionally, pay per click ads have  potential risks because competitors and clients can click on the ads with the intent of only clicking on the ads and not buying anything. 

If you’re an attorney, you’ll need to be extremely careful with display advertising.  If you’re advertising on the wrong websites or have the wrong advertisements on your blog, your brand may develop a bad reputation in some cases.  You’ll want to make sure you’re only advertising on relevant websites and that the place of the advertising displays looks professional. 

What is Display Advertising: Potential Advantages and Disadvantages Associated with Cost

When you’re working with your budget for display advertising, you’ll want to consider one of two options: pay per click (PPC) and cost per impression (CPM).  Each type of option is explained below:

PPC Display Advertising

The cost associated with PPC advertising is determined by how many times your ad is clicked on.  The majority of search engines rely on PPC ads, and the normal price range for such ads runs about 5 cents to $1.  When using PPC ads, you need to consider how you advertising displays are targeting and how much you’re willing to pay in order to increase your rank.

CPM Display Advertising

The cost of CPM advertising displays is determined by how many times your advertisement appears on the website’s of certain publishers.  CPM rates have drastically dropped in the last couple of years, but the top viewed websites can still require high rates for every 1000 times your advertisement is displayed. 

Conclusion

Before launching your display advertising campaign, you need to assess the potential risks and advantages associated with the type of ads you’ve chosen to pursue.  The greatest chance of success depends on how your ads are targeted and how much brand awareness the content of the ad can generate. 

Quick Guide to Pay Per Click Management Services

General Information on Pay Per Click Management

You’ve decided to launch a pay per click advertising campaign, and now you need the right pay per click services to perform the following duties:

·         see what keywords are bringing in the most visitors

·         see what advertising copy is working the most effectively

·         examine your profit margin at different times in the campaign

·         determine what geographic location your services are being directed to

·         determine how many people are visiting your website, how long they are staying on your website, and determine what parts of your website clients are visiting

As an attorney or firm, you may choose to hire private pay per click management services or may choose to use pay per click services offered by the provider.  Because most of the people on the internet rely on Google as their main search engine, many attorneys and firms rely on the pay per click management tools offered by the website as well.  Another leading tracking tool is the Pro, Pro Plus, or Pro Elite package from SEOmoz, but this article will discuss several different kinds of pay per click management services offered by Google. 

Pay Per Click Management: AdWords Location Targeting

With such pay per click services offered by Google, an attorney or firm can target specific areas of the country if their services extend beyond state limits or an attorney can choose to target a specified radius around a specific location such as a city. 

If you use advanced targeting, the pay per click services will help you target your services to people within the region, people viewing pages about the

region, and more.  Google recommends that these pay per click management services be left in the default setting for the best results in most cases.

Pay Per Click Management: Managing your Ads

If you’re using the pay per click management services under Google AdWords, you can adjust and manage your ad settings, your campaign settings, your budget and bidding, your keywords, your ad placements on the websites, your audience, and more.  Each of these pay per click services are explained below:

Adjusting Ad Settings with Pay Per Click Services

The pay per click management tools offered by AdWords allows you to rewrite your advertisement, fix ads for approval from Google, add more information to your advertisements, and even manage ad groups.  When using pay per click management services for ad groups, keep the following factors in mind:

·         choose the best keywords for your legal services

·         create a list of 5 to 20 keywords that are closely related to each other

·         keyword phrases of two or three words often work better than single keywords

·         consider using branded keywords

Pay Per Click Management Tool for Adjustable Campaign Settings

With these pay per click services, you can set up start and end dates for your campaign, exclude certain demographics from seeing your ad, temporarily suspend your campaign, and more.  

Budgeting Pay Per Click Management Services

The pay per click services offered by AdWords allow you to change your settings from accelerated to standard, limit your budget within certain campaigns, and more.  Additionally, the pay per click management tools offered by AdWords can allow the service to automatically bid for you or even make a recommended budget for you. 

Pay Per Click Management Services for Keywords

The pay per click services offered by AdWords can help you choose the right keywords for your campaign, make improvements on your keywords, and even estimate how much traffic a keyword is likely to generate.  Once you create your keywords using the pay per click management tools, you’ll receive several keyword statuses depending on if your keyword is eligible or not. 

Pay Per Click Management Services for Ad Placements on Websites

These pay per click services provided by AdWords  offer a Placement Tool to help an attorney find out what placement ideas are best.  These pay per click management tools also allow an attorney or firm to show ads on websites about certain topics, and exclude placements for certain topics. 

Pay Per Click Management Services for Intended Audiences

These tools offered by the pay per click services allow an attorney or firm to remarket their services to people who have visited their website and help the legal professional reach people who are interested in the services. 

While using this pay per click management tool, attorneys need to understand the rights of privacy that certain clients have under Google.  

Return on Investment and Pay Per Click Services

Normally, a business can use the ROI pay per click management tool to see how much profit they’re receiving after customers arrive at their website and purchase items.  However, an attorney can also use these pay per click services to see how many page views and leads are resulting in business for the firm.  Typically, the formula used by attorneys with these pay per click services is provided below:

((Revenue – Costs) / Costs)) X 100= ROI %

While using pay per click management services offered by AdWords, it’s imperative that your website is regularly updated and adjusted for your advertising campaign.  If you’re concerned about the effectiveness of your campaign, the pay per click management services offered by AdWords allow

you to test your campaign.  

While using the pay per click management services offered by Google, you should also consider the advertising platform offered by laws.com.  This website uses effective software to target your services geographically, and many of these advertisements are placed within articles that relate to your specific services.