I was pretty excited... until I saw the CPMs. It costs $10.50 CPMs on their education pages. By comparison, $10.50 will get me about 200 clicks on AdWords. (The minimum of $50 a day also means that the "learn the quirks of the site" period would be wildly expensive for me.)

I'd love for somebody to come up with something anywhere close to as good as AdWords for me... but I'm still looking.

@patio11

I've been working on precisely this sort of self-service ad technology for over a year now. Something that can help site owners run a pseudo-Facebook Ads service.

The product is finished and well worth a look. Only wish it was ready before NYT took the plunge :)

www.trafficspaces.com/tour/

5 cent clicks? Bingo competition is lower than I thought

This has been around for a while on nytimes.com

But another interesting thing about the Times' approach to online advertising is they don't use the low-quality ad networks that you see on many other publishers' websites. The front page and "above the fold" ads emphasize luxury brands and rich media from mainstream advertisers, and there is some AdSense running at the bottom of article pages, but you won't see scammy teeth-whitening ads (which can be readily found on the Washington Post website). It's a smart move, even if they are leaving some revenue on the table -- it makes the brand look respectable, and increases its ability to charge a premium on ads it does place on the pages.

The New York Times is not "leaving revenue on the table." The Times has long been a special case in attracting higher-than-average quality advertising.

Consider these figures from the NYT 2008 10k and that the Boston Globe is probably representative of the class of principle papers in major cities.

  Ad revenue by category

             National Regional  Classified  Other
  NY Times      70%      13%       15%       2%
  Boston Globe  29%      33%        8%       7%
  Regional       4%      56%        7%       7%

  source:  http://www.nytco.com/pdf/annual_2008/business.pdf

I was referring to unused inventory. Some publishers would rather run low-quality ad networks than house ads, even though it makes justifying higher CPMs much harder.

Take a look at the implied CPMs. They're insanely high - much higher than any large advertiser working with their sales force would be paying.

It would be amazingly daft to charge less through this system than they are already getting from big commitments. Those big accounts that buy a lot at once would simply go through this. If you're spending more than $10,000 it looks like you can already get a better deal. But if not you'll be able to advertise and not have to complicate it with sales people.

That said, I'm pretty sure NYTimes.com is already getting some pretty high CPMs (> $25 CPM). These self-serve ads won't be as visible as the large branding campaigns, but that's where the real money is.

can you recommend another good advertiser with lower cpms? thanks.

it would appear that their definition of small business is a bit different from mine. a 'low' daily minimum of $50 a day (or ~$1,500/month) is beyond the total monthly advertising expenditures of many locally owned and independently operated mom & pop establishments.

This may help explain the low visibility of so many small companies however.

Expect to see PHP, Python and Ruby "self-service ad manager" modules for ever CMS package on earth right about .. NOW!

Wouldn't it be better for the NYT to focus on their core competencies and just outsource their ads? This is Google's specialty and thus Google should be able to give advertisers a better value.

No. The New York Times has been selling ads since 1851. They go through the trouble of reporting the news only to entice people to look at ads next to the news.

Selling ads is exactly what the Times and every other media outfit is about. They have done pretty well for themselves so far.