AVC Demographics

If I was going to start selling ads on AVC (I am not), here are the advertising categories I should target according to Google Analytics:

AVC demographics

Nothing too surprising in here but it is interesting that entertainment (Film and TV) scored so high. I guess you don’t spend all of your time reading AVC 🙂

#Random Posts

Comments (Archived):

  1. JimHirshfield

    And how much revenue would you theoretically make per year from one display unit?Charity opportunity.

    1. Ana Milicevic

      I was just thinking that but more in a sponsorship context – e.g. ‘sponsor’ the blog for a month by donating X to cause of the month. Could fund a lot of nice things via Donors Choose that way.

      1. JimHirshfield

        For sure

  2. awaldstein

    Please <please> don’t become a media company!I notice that Disqus ads are gone and I thank you for that.

    1. fredwilson

      i turn them on occasionally to see what they are like. and then turn them off. i don’t need the money but i do need to understand how this stuff works (or doesn’t).

      1. awaldstein

        Of course.What interests me is not the precision of ad targeting but being careful to not be wrong and that is what Disqus doesn’t appear to understand.Facebook ads are amazing in that they take me as a category–expendible income who likes to travel, likes wine, a tech guy in NY. What they feed me is a smart array of things within the fingerprint of what statistically I might want and little that is random.

      2. ShanaC

        Poorly, because incentives towards true optimization are poorly aligned. Damned Wanamaker.

    2. Mario Cantin

      Out of curiosity, how do you think Disqus should monetize Arnold? (I didn’t need those particular ads in my life either, I should add).

      1. awaldstein

        I think the question is what does Disqus really do and their core value today?I can’t answer that but that needs to be done first imo.

        1. Salt Shaker

          Just a guess, but my hunch is Disqus in the aggregate (all publishers) reaches a lot of eyeballs yet is very fragmented when viewed by affinity categories (given the wide array of publishers it serves).Regardless, the ad biz is a tough place to play, particularly w/ Google and fb having combined 75%+ mkt share.

          1. awaldstein

            Agree.

          2. Kirsten Lambertsen

            I’m with you. I did a little gig recently where I thought we might plumb our Disqus analytics to find out what else we should be blogging about. But Disqus offered extremely paltry analytics. I know publishers who use the service would pay enterprise rates to get that kind of actionable data from their comments.

          3. Salt Shaker

            Don’t profess to know much about their biz and model. That said, Disqus has 2B monthly uniques, large enough reach where they should be able to create/offer panel data for each of their key verticals (e.g., sports, finance, tech, music). On the ad front, they create rev through Sponsored Links and Sponsored Stories, often not very targeted or relevant to commenters. Disqus has, however, made great strides in functionality.

          4. Donna Brewington White

            I agree on the impressiveness of their functionality improvement. One of the most user responsive companies I have ever come across.

          5. ShanaC

            Many publishers. Even better is if you could guess how to write from commentator language.It’s mostly viable you do if you are Disqus. But, yeah, nope, hasn’t happened yet

        2. Mario Cantin

          Maybe a paid upgrade the gravitates around deeper engagement.

          1. awaldstein

            I’ve spent a lot of time in the past thinking about this, speaking with them and blogging on it.I can’t imagine well a world without Disqus. I also can’t imagine where they are going.I’m happy they are alive and I’ll leave it at that.

          2. LE

            I can’t imagine well a world without Disqus. I also can’t imagine where they are going.What does disqus do for you that another comment utility couldn’t do? To me it’s a way to leave comments here and nothing more. I am curious what you get out of it otherwise.

          3. Donna Brewington White

            Far and above any commenting and engagement system I have ever experienced. In large part because they empower commenting to actually become engagement. Have bypassed opportunities to comment because Disqus is not the platform used.

          4. LE

            Sure but you would comment here even if it wasn’t disqus and you won’t comment on sites that don’t have disqus if you don’t feel a need to. Disqus is nice for sure but it’s not essential and the conversations that they enable are mainly formatting and display niceties not anything that rises to the level of getting people to say things that would not to begin with.In other words it hasn’t done for commenting what wordpress has done for publishing or twitter has done for conversations.And it is lacking some easy things that could be implemented to enhance the experience like adding to the summary email that is sent out who upvotes your comments.

          5. Donna Brewington White

            I will comment without Disqus but I must be especially motivated.When I was more focused on building my online engagement and persona, Disqus was even more essential. I don’t as actively comment as I once did and I really miss it.

          6. Susan Rubinsky

            Yup. I pass over too if it’s not Disqus.

          7. Kirsten Lambertsen

            Ditto.

          8. awaldstein

            There is no other comment system that works as well. Period.That in itself is enough.

          9. Susan Rubinsky

            Also finding other interesting people to follow via the comment thread (though Medium is getting good at that too).

          10. Amar

            At the end of the day – building a product that does its job well is not to be discounted. Thanks for that timely reminder.

          11. Mario Cantin

            This is well said Dude.

        3. LE

          Disqus needs to package the vast info they could cull from comments and package it for the media [1] and other decision makers (financial community) [2], what I have said here in the past a few times.[1] Journalists need shortcuts to stories.[2] Similar in a way to what mattermark does. I can see disqus being acquired by mattermark potentially. Or really any info service, once they build out the product that I am proposing.

          1. awaldstein

            Your presuming that insight is there and that they have the wherewithal to surface it of course.Since this was discussed 6 years ago here I can only presume it isn’t or they can’t.And the market has shifted with these discussions happening a lot elsewhere now.

        4. Kirsten Lambertsen

          I will say that the mobile app and push notifications have been great for me. My engagement is definitely up. I’d be really interested to know if it’s been a ‘hit’ for them.

      2. Jess Bachman

        They should do daily newsletter that highlights the top and most relevant posts and discussions. Not “Disqus Digest”… that sucks. Then sell sponsorship into the newsletter.

        1. Salt Shaker

          That seems like a good idea!

        2. Mario Cantin

          What do you think Jim?

        3. Salt Shaker

          Always thought Disqus should create its own network of thought-leaders by vertical (e.g., tech, finance, sports, music) and develop original content, particularly video, for placement w/ in the comment thread of its publisher network. Content would be complementary and targeted w/ rev share to participating publisher. The comment thread is valuable real estate and it seems to generate higher engagement than a blog or site’s original post. Perhaps a missed opportunity here for Disqus. (Ran by FW once and he didn’t like the idea of dev orig content.)

          1. Jess Bachman

            Comment thread is valuable real estate here at AVC.. but generally not elsewhere. Publications are generally hostile to the comment section and devalue it, if it exist at all.

          2. Salt Shaker

            Agree to a point as it depends upon the site. Crap breeds crap. Quality content breeds quality commentary. There are many quality affiliations w/in the Disqus pub network. Placement can be targeted and filtered, plus can create incremental rev. The more pubs that “devalue” the comment space the easier the sale will be to them. It’s a throwaway.

          3. Kirsten Lambertsen

            This sounds like a great problem to solve 😀

          4. ShanaC

            Because audience development is seen as reactive and not proactive. Comments are really only valuable in terms of data in an audience proactive model

    3. creative group

      awaldstein:How about the multi-level garbage being attached to replies?

      1. awaldstein

        are you a bot?

        1. creative group

          awaldstein:depending on the topic and who is deciding.

  3. Westport_Johnny

    How does one come up with this? Not sure we can be pigeon-holed into a single category…

  4. Donna Brewington White

    Oh, AVC is pretty entertaining.Especially when all the affinity categories are so often represented in the comment thread regardless of the post topic. Except “philosophers” seems to be missing.And this explains why so many video clips make it into the comments.

    1. Girish Mehta

      Since you mentioned clips :-)….here’s a lovely audio clip of Joan Baez reciting John Donne.Poetry….from the 17th century, resonating today.https://www.youtube.com/wat

      1. Donna Brewington White

        Nice combination — Baez and Donne.And timely.I think you are in that missing “philosopher” category.

        1. Girish Mehta

          How beautifully John Donne has said it…resonates.

    2. Ana Milicevic

      I’m skeptical that many brands would want to reach philosophers. Doesn’t seem like a very commercially active audience 🙂

      1. Donna Brewington White

        True, true. I was thinking more empirically than practically.

      2. awaldstein

        If you look at ad targeting (which I know you do) they certainly want to reach people with both expendable income and broad range of interests.So maybe we redefine the target and it fits well.

        1. Joe Cardillo

          Check the box for “Philosophers with income over $75k” =)

      3. sigmaalgebra

        Ah, philosophers are not the only category omitted! There’s no Chablis and Brie category. Or the Young Enviromenalist Urban Childless Dual Income Professionals — UECDIPs, I may have this one not quite right!I can see it now: Somewhere on the 35th floor in Manhattan, a table busy with bottled water and organic Chinese carryout, several marketing strategists with diverse styles but all with furrowed brows are in profound contemplation on how to reach the highly coveted UECDIP market!

      4. ShanaC

        I’d disagree, if only because the person reading the standard philosophy encyclopedia probably loosely correlates to income level, especially when adjusted by supposed location and gender. And if they aren’t thinking about it, they should, since probably the buy around philosophy is cheaper than something more obvious but I’d guess give similar performance for a brand.I’m weird for knowing that. Or even thinking about this…

        1. Ana Milicevic

          I’m with you directionally but w/ the current state of advertising it’s more likely that brands would try to sell Diogenes another barrel.

          1. ShanaC

            Pity, they should be selling him currency

    3. ShanaC

      Readers vs commentators are 2 different things.

  5. Donna Brewington White

    Does in-market segment mean the products/services that would be most marketable here? If so, sign me up — that is, if you were doing ads.

  6. William Mougayar

    I’m curious to find out how this compares to what your Twitter Analytics would tell you.

    1. Donna Brewington White

      And his Tumblr analytics if there is such a thing. I noticed that music doesn’t show up anywhere on this chart.

      1. William Mougayar

        Good point re:Music . And Fitness doesn’t figure either.

        1. awaldstein

          Fitness, nutrition, wellness are not really memes of this community.I can think of only two regulars whose fitness beliefs are top of mind.

          1. Girish Mehta

            Am actually quite into fitness and nutrition but hardly ever comment on it. Analytics would not capture me in that category…I know you are into it.

          2. awaldstein

            Interesting question is why actually?The advances of knowledge are quite astounding and very little reliable sources of information.

          3. Joe Cardillo

            That raises an interesting question… overlap between categories is much more complicated than just “is there an interest (aka like=) or knowledge.” Randal Olson wrote a good paper last year that deals with some of that via the lens of Reddit – https://peerj.com/articles/

          4. Lawrence Brass

            breakfast disclosure could give a hint..

          5. William Mougayar

            It is mine. I thought it entered the conversations a few times.

          6. awaldstein

            You are very obviously into food and wine and cooking.And as a friend but didn’t realize that nutrition and exercise as where science touches our lives.

      2. creative group

        Donna Brewington White:Is Tumblr still around. Thought it was ancient news.

    2. Ana Milicevic

      Twitter largely relies on 3rd party data for theirs. Google creates their own data set because they’re able to see what everyone is interacting with (and then anonymize). Because the categories are quite general and one can easily qualify into multiple categories I’d expect them to track similarly.@donnawhite:disqus (I’m tagging you since that seems to be the easiest way to respond to more than one person in a thread)

      1. Donna Brewington White

        You’re handy to have around. 😉

        1. Ana Milicevic

          Thank you. I try to buy a round every so often 😉

          1. Girish Mehta

            Thanks for all your inputs/comments today.

      2. William Mougayar

        Hmm. why would Twitter rely on 3rd party data for its user demographics? Don’t they have enough info based on what each user tweets about?Or is it a combination of 3rd party + native intelligence perhaps?

        1. Ana Milicevic

          Buyers often request specific 3rd party data. Twitter doesn’t necessarily have as robust a 1st party data set as Google (who also own Doubleclick ad server and AdSense) — interpreting sentiment, classifying unstructured content into targetable segments etc. isn’t a trivial task. They do seem to use geo a lot: I see this whenever I’m on the road; promoted tweets very rapidly adjust to current location/language.

          1. William Mougayar

            Interesting. Thanks

  7. Ana Milicevic

    A bit of high-level behind the scenes for those who might be interested: as you all know Google gathers information each time you interact with any web property whether through cookies on desktop or tied to a device ID on your mobiles. They then infer much of the information showcased above – it’s presented in a taxonomy that echoes how people have bought television advertising for years (in fact, most taxonomies are derivative of this one although in online ads we have greater targeting capabilities that by and large aren’t used very well). If an advertiser wanted to reach, say, technophiles, Fred’s bar would be a pretty safe bet.

    1. Lawrence Brass

      How do you interpret the entertainment high scores Fred mentions?

      1. Ana Milicevic

        Most of us probably venture to an entertainment property several times per day (this could be anything from IMDB, through entertainment sections of the NYT or similar, all the way to streaming service sites like Netflix, etc). Interest is inferred based on browsing behavior but the inference can and often is pretty broad. Entertainment as a category is also fairly broad.

        1. Lawrence Brass

          The ads I get often seem to be out of context. I can recognise my own tracks in some, but usually pop when I am in another mood/mode or just looking for something else. Others absolutely out of context and interest scope. I wonder if this is the usual experience for everyone.

          1. Ana Milicevic

            We as an industry haven’t really paid attention to overall customer experience until recently and I’d say that’s a pretty universal feeling of mismatched targeting. What’s really a shame is that we have incredibly granular targeting capabilities that would ensure delivery of very relevant advertising content, but the way advertising is bought and monetized hasn’t really fully embraced this. That’s why you’ll still see teeth-whitening and belly fat ads wherever you go.Users are fighting back though through the use of ad blocking tools. This is making everyone rethink things a little and is a true challenge to the way content has been monetized in digital channels to date.

        2. Kirsten Lambertsen

          Does all of YouTube get lumped into entertainment?

          1. Ana Milicevic

            Good question – and no easy answer. Since it’s a G property they have the ability to see what you’re watching so it can feed many classifications (e.g. Entertainment if you’ve seen movie trailers, DYI enthusiast if you watch how-to videos, etc). It’s not binary and it’s safe to assume that any signal can potentially influence classification into any relevant segment.

    2. ShanaC

      (Or browser fingerprint)So why the crappy buys. I have theories. But that is it

      1. Ana Milicevic

        It’s a trade-off b/w scale and specificity of buy. The more specific the audience the fewer of it there is.

        1. ShanaC

          Parts of the tradeoff are totally artifical, in part because understanding data with a buy is paltry at best, and there are never real discussions about what data/metadata is, or how it can be used. By far and away the only company I know really put together on the topic is Buzzfeed -and they spent millions on doing so.Take the philosopher example. Probably a really tiny demographic overall, but if you gather 10 interrelated specific buys, you’ll get scale, at below cost, because of how those demographics interlink. Buying technophiles is potentially a waste, because it is too broad to be high corollary for what you actual want, even with scale.Which again, makes me wonder wtf. (Though I think the rest of the wtf is a private email, because I’ll rant forever)

  8. pointsnfigures

    What’s amazing to me as person who majored in Marketing is how you can microtarget people. It’s seems as if every tool, every thing we learned in the pre-internet days was shooting from the hip, although the principles are the same. My daughter ran a social media campaign and took the brand from a garage to an exit all because she could hone in on the right target market.

    1. Donna Brewington White

      I’m looking for a Head of Social Media to drive user acquisition organically. Where is she? 🙂

      1. pointsnfigures

        onedesigncompany.com or @realmisscarter. she and her sister are doing a pretty cool thing with some purses now, or should I refer to them as “bags”?

        1. Donna Brewington White

          Nice site. Looks like she might want clients rather than a job.Seems like handbag or bag is the more current term.

      2. Joe Cardillo

        Might be worth talking to https://twitter.com/inababi (she’s pretty responsive online, but happy to intro if you’d like). Not sure if she’s looking, but she’s excellent at that and knows people who are as well. Also, since you’re in S. CA, have you already met the folks behind https://www.facebook.com/al… The main, private fb group has about 10k members, and there’s some serious talent in it, could be useful for you on a regular basis.

        1. Donna Brewington White

          Thanks Joe!

    2. awaldstein

      Nothing is more vacuous than well developed micro targeting tools without a sense of who you are and what you are selling.That is the norm most and the dark underbelly of growth hacking masquerading as marketing.Together powerful but the more you think that marketing is a science and make that it’s core the more you miss the mark

      1. pointsnfigures

        Agree. The basic blocking and tackling principles of marketing are the same, the new tools are much better.

      2. matthewmclean

        I wish I could upvote that comment 100 times. Marketing is a social science.

        1. awaldstein

          That is the core of my career.

        2. Joe Cardillo

          True, and you can see that in FB’s approach, for example. They’ve wooed a significant number of academic researchers and repurposed them. All of that social science data is then fed back into their ad placement and content analysis.

      3. sigmaalgebra

        Okay, for the goal of clicks, that’s well defined. Now, for marketing, get a well defined goal or some such can work with. Now, with the available data, should be able to do “micro targeting” for marketing instead of just clicks.

      4. Ana Milicevic

        Agreed. It’s a case of technology being well ahead of creative leveraging the technology well, all under the guise of scale and reach. Tide very slowly turning though.

      5. ShanaC

        Sort of.It might be possible to mathematically test parts of who you are/what is being soldBut doing so affects the larger system you’re in

    3. LE

      shooting from the hipWell not entirely there are industry specific trade publications and geo specific publications that I used to read where the advertising was effective and targeted.Back in the day, my wife owned and ran a coupon book distributed on college campuses that targeted college students. The ads were effective small business paid for them. Pizza shop, restaurant and so on. She would probably still do that today if she had not remarried and didn’t want to work anymore. They key was the distribution, sucking up to the right people who controlled access to students on college campuses. One such place was the school bookstore where a book was given to every student exiting at the cash register. One of her competitors was coupon clipper (based in Lancaster Charlie probably knows of them) which was sold to Gannett and is still in operation. [1]Looks like Gannett sold it:http://lancasteronline.com/…[1] In stories of true business my ex wife got distribution at the Penn bookstore when here big competitor couldn’t simply because the manager of the store had the hots for her and she worked that angle (at my encouragement and suggestion I might add.) When I showed up one day he actually told her I should leave he didn’t like me around. Didn’t bother me one bit, anything for business.

  9. William Mougayar

    4% shutterbugs?With cameras in our smartphones, we’re all shutterbugs.

  10. Salt Shaker

    AVC is well read, and reaches a fair number of readers for a blog, but in the scheme of things it’s audience size is still relatively small. When you start parsing the data into affinity groups I’m curious about data stability (small sample size), let alone efficiency for an ad buy as the % for each category is fairly small (e.g., 4.89% movie lovers)?For a while I kept seeing ads in AVC profiling Zac Efron’s abs. Don’t recall the product, if there even was one, but it did make me hit the gym.

    1. Ana Milicevic

      Those were ads coming through Disqus. There’s no product per se – you were meant to click on the article about Zac Efron (the one his abs were pointing to). You’d wind up on the site of whichever publisher composed the article about him in a traffic-driving scheme. It’s basically a variant on the tried and true buy low, sell high: the cost of getting you to click to get to the article is presumably lower than what your view of said article would be worth to the publisher monetizing their content via ads (and the publisher keeps the difference, rinse, repeat).

      1. Salt Shaker

        Hence, the devaluing of the internet experience and the rise of ad blocking tech. The Zac Efron link had zero relevancy for me, while its continuous frequency, seemed daily, only fueled my consternation. Doesn’t anyone buy into frequency curves?

        1. Ana Milicevic

          It was cheaper to buy it and not bother much w/ filtering since destroying user experience doesn’t really feature in conversations much. It will as ad blockers become more widespread and as more and more people react negatively to poorly targeted ads (best example are retargeting shopping ads: those product ads that ‘follow’ you around after visiting an ecommerce site).

    2. Matt Zagaja

      When you buy ad inventory through Double-click (Google’s vendor) you basically buy users instead of web properties. Amusing to see the reactions to this paradigm as people do not seem to realize this and often think the website they placed an ad on is somehow endorsing the ad. Ultimately I think I’d be more likely to want to sell my ad inventory directly to brands than use the display ad networks. Besides the lousy rates you could end up with things you do not want to associate with your brand.

      1. Salt Shaker

        Ad network vs. direct seller, no?

    3. ShanaC

      Doesn’t matter. And the cookie data is cross site

  11. creative group

    Fred:Are those analytics based upon general recorded information accurate and verified when many of the tech savvy contributors use VPN services and prevent tracking their Internet travels? We very rarely reveal our IP as being in the states and we are surely in the Valley of the Sun.There appeared to be many generalizations that could describe every blog in existence.

    1. Sebastien Latapie

      I wonder how many contributors to USV mask their IP with VPNs – I feel it is less than you would believe. I consider myself quite tech savvy, but rarely use a VPN. Twitter poll?

  12. creative group

    Contributors:The fervent cry and support of the Brexit had the following consequences:————–When reality dawned, the reaction was brutal. Sterling fell as much as 11 percent against the dollar on Friday for its worst day in modern history, while $2.8 trillion was wiped off the value of world stocks — the biggest daily loss ever.That trumped even the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy during the 2008 financial crisis and the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987, according to Standard & Poor’s Dow Jones Indices.”Brexit vote sends new shocks through financial markets, political chaos deepenshttp://in.reuters.com/artic…———-Now who was yelling Hip hip hooray?

  13. Rob Underwood

    I was really hoping to see “Phishhead” make the list. I count a few among the regulars.

    1. scottythebody

      like the band?

      1. Rob Underwood

        Yup.

  14. Ryan Frew

    Fred – Quick WordPress tip/website feedback: When you upload an image to WordPress, you will have the option to make it clickable to the image’s dedicated URL. Maybe you’re already aware of this, but it would have been helpful here, so that the image could be easily expanded. Looking at this <http: avc.com=”” wp-content=”” uploads=”” 2016=”” 06=”” avc-demographics.jpg=””> is way easier than looking at the screenshot within the post, itself.

  15. sigmaalgebra

    For ad targeting, that won’t work very well:(1) First, on each user, slap on one of a few labels. That’s too crude and, thus, can’t be very accurate.(2) For each label, use ads picked for that label. Again, that’s too crude and, thus, can’t be very accurate.

  16. Rob Underwood

    I went to Amy’s Farm.

  17. Ryan Frew

    A huge portion of AVC’s readership comes from mobile. I don’t know if Fred has written about it directly, but he indicated a couple of years ago that more than 20% of traffic was coming from social (Twitter, basically), which is dominantly mobile. http://avc.com/2014/09/sear

  18. creative group

    Josh Habdas:What analytics are you using to determine the majority of contributors on Fred’s blog are on desktops (ancient) verses notebooks, tablets and mobile phones? (which are just as powerful than a desktop and easier to carry)

  19. Tom Sullivan

    good to see Lori is still crushing it