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> That $25k min. spend is a sales qualifier and looks like it was successful in filtering you out... This sounds like an effective way for any company dependen

by daveguy 10y ago

> That $25k min. spend is a sales qualifier and looks like it was successful in filtering you out... This sounds like an effective way for any company dependent on sales to fail. Especially online advertising sales where your incremental cost is approximately zero. There should be a term for management that makes this mistake.

shostack 10y ago
I disagree entirely. Particularly for a big display platform like Tumblr, that had a reputation for tons of porn and generally low-quality impressions, big companies need to see other big companies take the risk and do cool branding stuff that gets talked about. That takes investment, and means that you need to focus all of your business efforts in attracting that target, and then making sure they are successful. With small budget direct response advertisers, all too often you get people who promise they will spend more if it is profitable, but because they don't know how to properly value display (see my last click comment) they won't see last click success, and will thus not be a repeat advertiser. Beyond that, they will also contribute to spreading the word that Tumblr is not a quality inventory source, which could kill them before they had a chance to really shine. If I'm trying to grow ad sales on a property as large as Tumblr with the reputation it had, the first thing I'm going to do is make it clear that the focus is first and foremost on big brands and not the little guy. That's what brings in the dollars, not the latter. The little guys come in once you are already at scale with proven success for big brands. Once that is successful with your limited sales resources, then and only then do you create a self-serve platform for small direct response advertisers with minimal 1:1 contact (ala AdWords, Bing Ads, etc.). You need to think of the long game and think of where you would prioritize your resources. Would you rather get a small inconsistent cashflow of people who are likely to talk crap about your inventory because they don't know how to properly measure it if they don't see a positive ROI after spending a couple grand? Or would you rather focus all your efforts on big brands who know what they are doing, have the budget to do highly visible tests, and aren't afraid to "waste" 10's of thousands of dollars testing something new that might not work out?

by daveguy 10y ago

shostack 10y ago

I disagree entirely. Particularly for a big display platform like Tumblr, that had a reputation for tons of porn and generally low-quality impressions, big companies need to see other big companies take the risk and do cool branding stuff that gets talked about. That takes investment, and means that you need to focus all of your business efforts in attracting that target, and then making sure they are successful. With small budget direct response advertisers, all too often you get people who promise they will spend more if it is profitable, but because they don't know how to properly value display (see my last click comment) they won't see last click success, and will thus not be a repeat advertiser. Beyond that, they will also contribute to spreading the word that Tumblr is not a quality inventory source, which could kill them before they had a chance to really shine. If I'm trying to grow ad sales on a property as large as Tumblr with the reputation it had, the first thing I'm going to do is make it clear that the focus is first and foremost on big brands and not the little guy. That's what brings in the dollars, not the latter. The little guys come in once you are already at scale with proven success for big brands. Once that is successful with your limited sales resources, then and only then do you create a self-serve platform for small direct response advertisers with minimal 1:1 contact (ala AdWords, Bing Ads, etc.). You need to think of the long game and think of where you would prioritize your resources. Would you rather get a small inconsistent cashflow of people who are likely to talk crap about your inventory because they don't know how to properly measure it if they don't see a positive ROI after spending a couple grand? Or would you rather focus all your efforts on big brands who know what they are doing, have the budget to do highly visible tests, and aren't afraid to "waste" 10's of thousands of dollars testing something new that might not work out?