Visit ClickRiver at next weeks TicketSummit 2007 Convention.
By Alfred Branch, Jr.
How would you like for your ticket-reselling website to reach a few more sets of eyes? You do? Well, how about several million more.
Clickriver Ads, a wholly owned subsidiary of the behemoth retail site Amazon.com, sells sponsored link text ads that can appear during customers’ searches. Matt Battles, director of sales and marketing for Clickriver, said that according to Nielsen/NetRatings, Amazon generates an average of 44 million visits from U.S. customers per month, so brokers could potentially have a staggering amount of reach. Clickriver is in the public beta stage.
“With the kind of reach that this allows, it’s a great way to expand a broker’s advertising initiative,” Battles said. . .
Clickriver ads are placed directly on the pages of products that a person searches for on Amazon, similar to what Google does. For example, let’s say that a person is searching for the latest CD by Beyonce or Justin Timberlake. They type in the name, get a bunch of links to their various albums and they click on one.
The page lists the album, ordering information, customer reviews and other items, and at the bottom of the page are sponsored links for “Justin Timberlake tickets” for his latest tour. The ads are included on the page every time someone searches for CDs or other merchandise from the former ‘N Sync member.
Not only can a broker decide on what pages their ads will run during searches, they can also determine where visitors will go when they click on the links.
“They can choose the keywords for their ad that are relevant, such as for specific bands or events,” Battles said. “For each ad, the broker can determine the page on their site that visitors will go to when they click on it.”
Clickriver utilizes a pay-per-click model that allows a broker to determine how much they want to pay, Battles said. For example, if a broker’s site averages 10 visits for every sale, they could determine what make per sale and then pay one-tenth of that as a pay-per-view payment for each click.
“You choose the maximum amount that you’re willing to pay,” Battles said. “You control it.” Brokers can leave the program whenever they want, and the minimum amount that they can pay is 10 cents per click. Payments are considered bids, so the higher the pay-per-click payment, the higher or better the placement on the search result page.
Battles was quick to add that while music-related pages might be the most natural place for sponsored text ads from brokers, sports-related pages, whether for equipment or team apparel or DVDs.
“This is a great chance to get in at the beginning stages,” Battles said.
