Small sites (those with less than one million page views per month) command nearly three times as much per ad as large sites (those with more than 100 million page views per month): an effective CPM (cost per thousand) of $1.18 versus $0.38. The effective CPM across sites of all sizes is $0.49. All of these figures are for March, 2008. Ad rates are also growing faster for small sites, up 18 percent since January versus 12 percent growth overall. ^
What this reveals:
* Niche marketing, and brand loyalty to media products, has finally become reality it was predicted it would when the playing field was levelled between those who owned big printing presses, so their per-copy cost was low, and those who had small or no presses. (I just got spam for something called “MegaPress,” what does that mean?)
* Blogs — or as a programmer might call them, dated entry management and presentation systems — are going to dominate because they are perfect for niche topics and periodic, informal, informative updates.
* Big Media is suffering because it targets a mythical average person duplicated ten million times into the mainstream product, when really there’s a silent majority out there with variations within it we call niches.