Updates for Ridley Report advertisers

[DadaOrwell]

"Advertising with the Ridley Report gets the word out!"

- Ian Freeman
  Free Talk Live / FreeKeene.com

WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU BUY A RIDLEY REPORT AD:

1) I build an ad and a "blip" for you.  Generally the blip airs at the start of the vid, the full ad at the end. 
2) I link to your URL at the beginning of my video descrip.
3) Your ad buy increases the number of ridleos - probably by one per week - for as long as it's regularly airing.  You get public credit for that.
4) Ad keeps running 'till it gets the views you paid for.
5) If it gets more views than you paid for...the extras are free.

PRICES

While the Feds are inflating, the Ridley is chopping your costs.  There's another 30% rate cut in effect as of 8/2010.

Now small runs (under $100) cost you just 1.5 cents per hit
Runs $100 and over cost even less...1 cent per hit.
Unexpected extra hits are free.  Hits that occur after a video's first week on the air are free.

Example:  Say you buy a $100 ad run (a penny a hit_.  That means I owe you 10,000 first-week hits on your ad during that run .  Say your ad airs three times.  The first airing gets 2,000 hits in its first week; the second gets 1,000 in its first week and the third gets 8,000.   The total number of first-week hits is thus 11,000.  I overshot it, you got 1,000 more first-week hits than you paid for.  Woo hoo!

The run then completes technically but you continue getting free hits for as long as the video's up.

Sometimes I make live ads quick & dirty in the field.  These will often be missing some element like the clickable URL. If so they'll be discounted, usually half price. 

Most folks order a set dollar amount worth of ads.  The most common purchase is $100 or alternate-currency equivalent. 

CAVEATS

The quality of the ad, and the number of versions, is proportionate to your expenditure.  The less expensive your ad run, the less time I'll put into the ad and the less chance I can make a second version of it.   I'm not usually able to check the number of hits at precisely the one-week mark, so estimating is often required. It will benefit you sometimes, me sometimes.  Fortunately, most YouTube hits tend to occur during the first few days so it's easy to achieve accurate estimates.

QUESTIONS FOR ADVERTISERS

What do you want to advertise and how?
On a scale of 1 to 10 how weird/normal would you want the ads to be? (1 is Jim Kerry, 10 is Mike Wallace).
What kinds of stories do *you* think you'd most benefit from being in (I can't always match you up but want to know).
How much would you want your first ad run to be?
What's the exact URL you'd want me to plug?
Any thoughts what the message should be?
Any time frame of importance to you?
And...what is thy bidding?

Contact me through http://RidleyReport.com or by e-mailing RidleyReport at live period com

[lastlady]

Makes sense to me. I have a question for you, have any of your advertisers mentioned noticing a direct increase in traffic after their ad was viewed? Any feedback at all of this nature?

[dalebert]

I heard someone say that the Free Keene dot com melodic sound was stuck in their head really tenaciously. Must have done something right there. If someone gets curious about Free Keene, they probably won't have any trouble recalling the URL.

[Russell Kanning]

I know his ads work ... people find out about other stuph happening in NH through the videos and the ads.
The ads work on me.

[Russell Kanning]

good explanation Dave

[McDuck]

I know his ads work ... people find out about other stuph happening in NH through the videos and the ads.
The ads work on me.

Same here.  I didn't even know about freekeene.com until I watched some of Dave's vids on youtube.

[dalebert]

One thing I'm learning from Project Wonderful, both as an advertiser myself and from what some of my customers have said-

You can't underestimate the value of well-targeted advertising. It seems to make an exponential difference in terms of whether people actually pay attention to an ad and are responsive. Ridley Report is hitting prime targets for liberty messages/media/products/etc.

[DadaOrwell]

Dear Ridley Report advertisers:

I wanted to update you with regard to some things that affect you.    First, as you may have noticed, I am now broadcasting live from the scene in some cases.   Live remotes are a great tool but an easy thing to abuse.  When they came to television in the 80s, viewers were subsequently subjected to decades of boring reporter standups in front of empty buildings.  My live remote situation lends itself to a different kind of abuse.  If I air a live report, and try to do a live ad in the process, it may not be as interesting or "correct" as the ads I normally edit for you.   I may not be able to put your link in the video description at first.  Eventually I may get to the point where the live ads are just as good in their own way, but for now they are not worth charging you full price over.  If it's okay with you, here's how I'll work this for now.  I may advertise you live...but if I do so I'll  charge you half price for that ad.  Once I am content that I have refined the live approach to the point where it rivals the taped ads....The price will probably end up being the same for each.   Let me know if you have any issues with this approach.

Another issue I should bring up:  Since I've now become a youtube parter, I'm allowed to "autoplay" my featured video.  This may artificially increase my number of hits, on some vids.  I'm checking to see if there is a marked increase.   If it is I may institute a discount of some kind, or further delay rate incrases.  If not...then my rates will not be effected by the autoplay.
I can't drop my rates too much or I will be unable to fulfill orders on a timely basis.

Ultimately I don't really like autoplay, or artificial hit increases...even though the source of the increase is youtube itself.  However an artificial increase  would trigger a subsequent *natural* increase.  It would put me on various youtube positions I otherwise don't achieve, thus getting me new viewers who *aren't* affected by the autoplay.  Additionally, even if there are people viewing only the first ten seconds of "your" story...they are still going to see your URL and hear your jingle.

So I probably shouldn't say no to autoplay unless you specifically request it.  I can only make sure you are still getting what you pay for.  The latter I am doing and keeping an eye on the situation, trying to answer several questions:  Is it boosting hits much?  Is the boost artificial? If artificial, is it resulting in more people counting as hits but failing to see the ad? So far it doesn't seem to be having much effect but it may take another week or two to figure out.   Autoplay began around 2/13.   

BTW about 1/2 of vids will be affected by autoplay, for about 12 hours on average.

Lastly I wanted to make sure that all of you are aware of the big discount that goes into effect whenever you order $100 or more worth of ads.  The price goes down 30 percent.  It becomes 2 cents per first-week video view.

Let me know if you have any questions, concerns or instructions for me.

To hear the latest "news for advertisers," visit http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=15218.0
I include this link in most video descriptions and will probably put it on my youtube page next.

I will not normally send mass mails like this.

Thanks again all of you for....
Your support..
Of the report!

Dave

[Ron Helwig]

In the 'etc' vein, I suppose I should do a little report on the website.

I recently added a couple of PayPal buttons so people can donate (either a monthly $1 or a one time in any amount). All donations over $50 in any month will be split between the webmaster and the listed ridleographers. [I figure it'll be a while before it gets to that point, so I haven't bothered to figure out the details. It will probably be based on number of recent videos or page views or something like that so the more prolific contributors get more monetary appreciation.]

There is a new Ridleographer in the list. Dover Exposure is a new reporter.

I recently added a "hot list" that should be displaying the most viewed recent videos, by ALL of the ridleographers. [The front page of the site only shows Dave's videos, per Dave's request.]
http://ridleyreport.com/hot

Google changed a few things that messed up the site for a bit. For one, they changed the URLs for the YouTube feeds, causing much confusion to the programming. I think that has all settled out now, and the hot list should be working properly. Newer video pages start with more points, and get more points when they are viewed, commented on, or voted on; but the points slowly drop over time.

Also, Google changed how their ad system works. In the past, you could pass them the Google ID of the ridleographer and it would give them the ad revenue for that page. Now you have to configure the ads on Google's site so the revenue sharing thing doesn't work anymore.

Anyway, traffic is slowly building up.

[Coconut]

I recently added a "hot list" that should be displaying the most viewed recent videos, by ALL of the ridleographers. [The front page of the site only shows Dave's videos, per Dave's request.]

I don't know about the others, but I know I'm not a "Ridley trained videographer".  I appreciate the links though.

edit: ooo, and I have 1080 points! Whatever that is Upsettingly, obscured truth is right on my tail. Better get moving.

[DadaOrwell]

I will be doing civil disobedience on March 3 and may be jailed.  This could affect advertisers, but I will endeavor to make good in whatever ways I can once I am released.

Details:

http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=17123.msg286553#msg286553

[DadaOrwell]

I wanted to post some more details about the mechanics of a Ridley Report ad. Info that would overcomplicate the overview I send every advertisers, yet stuff I want to make sure is out in the open. 

Here's what usually happens after you commission your first ad run.

In the absence of some agreement to the contrary, your first ad will probably be pretty basic.  It will likely be followed with improved versions if the ad run's long enough. 
The bigger the ad buys the more chances I will have to improve the ads, and the more versions of the ad will tend to appear.

I am not able to check the view totals every day, however I do have a mechanism for determining the number of hits each ad received during its first week on the air.  I check the hit totals roughly every two weeks.   Then I estimate how much your video appears to have received during its first week on the air.  The hit totals tend to go up pretty slowly after the first few days, so a look at the four day mark or 14 day mark will give me a good estimate of FW views.  The estimate might be off by as much as 10 percent.  But as often as not that will work in your favor. 

In the end it should even out, but if you are not content with this approach you are welcome to do your own counting and report the numbers to me.   I would probably use your figures rather than my own in calculating my progress toward completion of the ad run.   Let me know if this is an issue for you so I can address your concern, but for the most part it isn't practical for me to check hit totals more often than I do.

[DadaOrwell]

for the last 3 weeks I have been behind on communicating with advertisers and tracking ads.  It's mostly because of internet issues.  Plz bear with me if I am not as responsive as usual.

[DadaOrwell]

Lastlady sorry for the slow response: Most advertisers don't seem to have a way of tracking their traffic from my ads, but some do report big spikes. The ones who seem to get the most bang for the buck are liberty-related in their orientation and have something to sell or promote in New Hampshire.  They do even better I think if they show up at meetings, post on the forums, participate in the movement, etc.   But I suspect a lot of the impact of the ads is indirect and delayed, or viral word of mouth with people running around singing the URL.  Freeeee Keeeeene Dot commmmmm lol
 

[DadaOrwell]

I *think* the following instructions should bring up all airings of your ad...altho YouTube keyword searches sometimes miss things.

If the number of airings seems less than what it should be, that may be because your keyword search is failing to turn up certain airings.  Let me know and maybe I can find them manually for you.

Now...here's how to find your airings: First, visit
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RidleyReport&view=videos

Then keyword search your own URL...http included.  For instance if you are Free Keene you would keyword search

"http://FreeKeene.com"

or better yet "- http://FreeKeene.com"

The dash should filter out stories where I merely mentioned you in the video descrip.