Sportsyndicator

Sports Social Networks

Business week has article about sports social networks. Article is very American oriented with main story being Body Miller, who has created Skispace and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has Nascar social network called Infield Parking.

It is very obvious that sports are spot on for social networking. Our Sportsyndicator Network has some great examples on how big original social network sites aka "forums/pictures and stuff"-sites can be: Pinkbike has 30 million page views, 470.000 unique visitors and some 2000 pictures get uploaded everyday. German site MTBnews.de is huge as well, with about 200.000 unique users. Even swedish skiing website called Freeride.se gets more than 100.000 unique visitors per month.

In a order to understand social network software and widgets better, I relaunched my ROCsport.com site with full-on social network software just this week. Site is compatible with Flickr, Facebook and OpenSocial, so I will have many restless nights trying to figure those things out...
Generally, I think that many sleeping sites should take advantage of vast selection of social networking software available and rebuild their site for todays 2.0 web format.

Social networking opens new ways for online advertising as well. We have now quite a interesting tool in works for that, so stay tuned as we inform about it later this spring...

launching the affiliate network

I have exciting news for you about our new sports affiliate network.
We see a great future on performance based advertising and here is a little brief for you explaining why we are going towards CPA campaigns.

Sportsyndicator Affiliate Network specializing in cycling, skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, outdoors and golf

BACKGROUND:
In the past year, Sportsyndicator has built a network of 400 niche sports publishers and advertisers on a CPM (cost-per-thousand-impressions) basis.

Network's purpose has been to help advertisers to reach niche sports audiences more easily through one single point of contact and operate as an advertising salesforce for publishers who don't have capability to sell ads on their own.
While working in the global market of sports advertising, we have learned two important things which have led us to start an Affiliate Network for sports.

ONE:
Advertisers are starting to sell more and more products online in order to shorten their supply chain and offer more competitive pricing. As a result, advertisers are now increasingly looking for marketing methods where they can minimize their up-front risk and maximize ROI (return of investment).

TWO:
Less than 5% of niche sports sites are fully utilizing available advertising space with CPM offerings. The reason: sports industry advertisers don't have the will or money to fill those sites with costly CPM campaigns.
95% of surf, ski, cycling, and other niche sports sites can easily fill their available advertising inventory with CPA (cost per action) campaigns. Currently, many of these sites are filling their empty ad spots with meaningless banner advertising that includes mortgage offers, screen savers, ring tones, credit cards and dating adverts that pay pennies on CPM, look cheap and discount the looks and content of the website.

OUR SOLUTION:
Tons of sports-specific advertising from the best sports brands on a CPA (cost per action) basis. CPA means that instead of paying per 1000 impressions, advertisers pay per action (e.g. sale, click or lead). Sportsyndicator's Affiliate Network generates the ROI advertisers demand, while providing publishers with high-quality sports-targeted advertising 24/7.

Sportsyndicator's Affiliate Network has been a success right from the beginning. In the first six weeks we have signed-up more than 80 advertisers, with 30 of them already live. Now, sports publishers can go into our system, select the campaigns they like, place them on their sites, and collect commissions between 3% and 10% for every sale generated.

For example: If a $500 snowboard is sold though your site with a commission of 7%, you get $35. Not bad, especially knowing that you can increase sales with smart ad placements, text links and hot links.

In addition to our growing Affiliate Network, Sportsyndicator continues to offer a variety of CPM campaigns from premiere advertisers like REI, Oakley and others.

GOOD LOOKING ADS:
As you know, print magazines always want the best looking ads on their first spreads. Cool ads make the magazine look important. This same principle applies to websites. On our Affiliate Network you can hand-pick ads for your site, ensuring your site looks professional and consistent.

SIGN-UP:
If you have already signed-up with us in past 12 months, there is no need to register again. To request your new username and password, simply reply to this email. If you don't have an account with us yet, you can sign-up using the link below:

SIGN-UP HERE: https://network.sportsyndicator.com/affiliate_signup.html

You either ran today or you didn't

Today at 03.00pm I was going nowhere. I think myself as some sort of creative worker but now my mind was just spinning with no rational thoughts what-so-ever. I ended up on Youtube watching clips from movie called Boiler Room.
There is a reason why I keep my running gear visible; They remind me that "you either ran today or you didn't. That killer slogan is from old Nike ad. Superb ad that just tells you how life is, no sweet talking there.

I put Indy the Siperian husky on harness and jump to my studded running shoes and hit local trails. 1h 15min and about 10km later I'm feeling great. I enjoyd combination of nature, sweat and little thrill as trails were a bit tricky with mud, roots and snow. I could have skip is this run and keep my misery...

Not a blog...more like list of bi-annual announcements

I started my first blog in the summer 2005 and I was up-to-date until I started with Sportsyndicator in August 2006. Since then it has been almost complete "radio silence" that is now over.

I could say that I been so busy, that I have not had time to blog, but that would be a lie.
Truth is that even though I do work seven days a week, 10-16h per day, I could spare 5-10min to write a little blog note, so lets face the truth: I haven't had anything to say / I am slacker.

See, sometimes you are just so focused on getting things done that you feel, not yet, not yet and you keep postponing your communications.  Once little time has gone by on "radio silence", it becomes harder to get back on on board. It is same with dropping off from exercise routine or saying "I am sorry" to someone; Obstacle grows bigger.

Lets say sorry and move on...

Click Fraud make's headlines

Few weeks back Business Week had feature story about click fraud. Problem's are many; competition clicks your banners so that your budget is done and click based ad disappears. Some people build sites with no content but with domain that matches with ads that they collect to that dummy site.
And then there are these groups who "pay you for surfing the web" which means that you have to click certain banners so that money goes to right people.

I read article and as strongly as I believe that big boys (Google and Yahoo) come up with solutions to avoid majority of click fraud, I was happy to realise that it is not much of our problem.
- We know all the sites in our Networks and know that there are no dummy sites. Visitors on our network sites are there for the right reasons; specific sports content
- We do mostly CPM (cost per thousand views) and extra clicks dont cost extra to our advertisers
- Possibility for daily budgets and per viewer daily limitations cut down even extra page views
- Geo targeting limits views and clicks only to territories where advertiser has business in

All this takes weight off my back, but as always, we have to keep eye on this stuff so we stay on the safe side.

Link to article: Business Week - Click Fraud.

Lets sell advertising!

Here is the Sportsyndicator. First online advertising sales company dedicated to sports sites and advertising.
I have reason for this company; I love sports, Internet and media sales.
I know that world is full of cool sites that produce great content, but someone has to help these publishers to capitalize those ever growing visitors.
I also know that niche sports magazines are not growing since young guys in snowboarding and skateboarding are not buying magazines anymore. Magazine decline is first happening on youth sports, but I know that older audience magazines will follow. Biking, skiing and even golf are facing the fact that people spend more and more time on Internet and there is much more choices than on a news stand.

Anyway, enough preaching for today. Simply, we want to be the ad salesforce for all these cool little sites around the world. Together these sites give sports industry and lifestyle advertisers great platform to do interactive campaigns for sports enthusiasts in every age.