FM Publishing Launches Ad Platform: "CPM is the tip"

I ran into John Battelle last week at AdTech. He's the brains behind FM Publishing, the blog network that is today announcing a new suite of tools for advertisers. He and I were talking a bit about the idea of influencers, and his network. CPM is just the beginning, he said. Sure, you can buy ads by the thousands on BoingBoing, but so what? The more interesting thing is to somehow connect with the audience that is visiting that site, many times a day looking for insight from a few very influential people.

He's definitely thinking about blog advertising in the right way. You can think of a blog as simply another bit huge bucket of inventory, but that ignores the fundamental nature of both the audience and the publisher.

I've long believed that blogs generate a lot of frequency, but little reach. So, putting up the same banner over and over becomes a waste quickly. The people who are going to buy the t-shift have bought it, and the rest of the impressions are wasted. Instead, create a program that involves and evolves. The returning customer sees a growing message that they become involved with.