While many content websites lament decreasing ad revenues, the blog network, Gawker Media, expects January’s ad revenues to be around 10 percent above those in January last year. Apparently, it’s all due to some good old fashioned… innovation!

According to the Silicon Alley Insider, the owner of Gawker Media, Nick Denton, attributes the 10 percent increase in ad revenues to sponsored posts, the strategic placement of Google ads, and most importantly, ‘branded site takeovers.’

Branded what?

Branded site takeovers are where one of Gawker’s advertisers ’sponsors’ the website and, as a result, the website is re-skinned in the look of that advertiser. Here’s an example of Gawker owned, Gizmodo.com.au, re-skinned by Microsoft.

You can probably see why advertisers love these branded re-skins: because, unlike banner ads, they’re impossible to miss!

Creativity like this is what keeps an Internet business – indeed, ANY kind of business – surviving and thriving, when everyone else is struggles.

Source: Nicholas Carlson, “Gawker’s Branded Site Takeovers Make Your Banners Look Sad,” Silicon Alley Insider, February 5, 2009

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 3:46 am and is filed under Blogging, Feature, Internet Marketing Niche, Online Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.