Are Ads in Blogs Successful?

Ads have been present in blogs for awhile now, and larger companies are getting into the act. The NYTimes reported that Budget Rent a Car ran a four week promotional campaign by inserting ads in 177 targeted blogs. They spent $20k, received 19.9M impressions and 60k click-throughs to the Budget blog. $.33 CPC. Is that good? Does anyone else have any blog ad CPC to compare?

An interesting quote from the article:

Even so, "the jury's still out on the metrics," Mr. Deaver said. "I'd be lying if I said I know what to measure to determine success."

This is a good opportunity for bloggers to consider better understanding their audience, so they can get in on the advertising action. I'm not talking about Adsense-Overture advertising where site content (and visitor preferences!) dictate which ads are shown. I'm more intrigued by seeing that marketing consultants are checking Technorati for information about the relevancy of the blog to determine where to place ads. Know thy visitors!

On a slightly separate note, ABSOLUT has announced that their print, TV and outdoor advertising would be taking a "back seat to the Web". This is just one example of a very big shift...will we be seeing their ads in any of our favorite blogs? (They have a great website btw...worth checking out).

Filed in: advertising analytics blog