[epub] Is this why ezine advertising will die out?

["Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian" <drmani@xxxxxxxx>]

I've lost faith in ezine advertising... and if anyone can make
me see the light, I'd be delighted ;)

Here's my story:

To promote my new "Ezine ANTI Marketing" system course, I placed
ads in 7 ezines and ran 1 co-op ezine ad.

The handpicked ezines included 2 *perfectly* targeted ones (where
the readership was primarily ezine publishers and marketers,
interested in income generation through email newsletters), with
subscriber counts of between 1,000 and 3,000.

The other 5 were high quality general internet marketing
newsletters with smaller circulation (500 to 5,000 subscribers).

The co-op ad went to a group of ezines, most on internet
marketing, with a combined readership of over 145,000.

I tried out different ads, including solo announcements (2
kinds, one with long copy, the other shorter), classified
ads and one top sponsor ad.  Each ad invited responders to
either visit a website or send email to an autoresponder for
more information.

In total, out of what should have been over 150,000 viewers,
just 57 people requested further information - and not one
ordered!

Now contrast this with my own list - which has just 2,067
readers at this moment.  In a year-end letter to my list,
I share the numbers from my last few promotions - see this
page for more details:

  http://www.EzineMarketingCenter.com/mani-letter-2004.htm

To summarize, my *lowest* clickthrough rate has been 8% -
and the best was 23.4%

With a 150,000 viewer base, this means I should have got
35,000 visits (at best), or 1,200 visits (at worst).  Even
a fraction of this might be ok - but to net 57 *leads*
is pathetic, to say the least.

The experience raises several questions:

1.  Are we better off running Pay-Per-Click promotions
than ezine advertising?

2.  Are ezine publishers justified charging $3 to $30
CPM rates for ads, unless they can GUARANTEE at least
1% response rates, if not higher?

3.  I've stopped running paid-ads for many years now.
I work only on endorsed mailings, in context to my
readers' interests.  Should all ezine publishers be
doing this, in the interest of better response rates?

4.  Is ezine advertising dead - or dying?


My answers, in light of recent experience, would be
"Yes - No - Yes - Yes".

What do YOU think?

Dr.Mani
... the Ezine ANTI Marketer ;)
http://www.EzineMarketingCenter.com/anti/

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