Digg, much like Twitter recently has, today unveiled a new ad program. Digg chief revenue officer Chas Edwards says that Digg Ads will soon be searchable, and that search queries will tie to keywords in Digg Ads.
Right now, ads are random on the site, but the ad database will tie into the main search engine with the next version of the site. This means that more relevant Digg Ads will appear next to other results.
“It’s important for people who use Digg to understand ad placement,” writes Laurie Sullivan. “Transparency is also important. It’s important to mimic the format. They understand it’s an ad, but an ad they can dig. It’s great feedback for the advertiser and mechanism for Digg readers to regulate the ad experience. The people who read Digg see campaigns, brands and content and give feedback by saying ‘I Digg that.’ Readers can bury those they think lame.”
When campaigns have more Diggs, click-through rates will have more impressions and the campaign will see lower costs per clicks. Much like with the stories, Digg wants the community to dictate what ads its sees. Digg wants to create a “permalink” page for the ads for comments and information rather than sending users away from Digg.
Advertisers will pay a cost per click for Digg Ads, compared with display campaigns and IAB inventory that use CPM . “We’re always going to look at what is the effective cost-per-thousand impressions served, even though we charge advertises on a cost-per-click basis,” says Edwards.
Source: MediaPost {link no longer active}
