Cost-Per-Thousand
CPM pricing was actively promoted by the big portals such as Yahoo and AOL. It was a great revenue generator for them that had the added bonus of being largely risk free. That is, the advertiser did all the creative work and made the payments while the only thing the portals had to do was display the ad as often as they could until the advertiser's budget was exhausted. It's this one-sided nature of the CPM model that has pushed advertisers to seek an alternative that can offer them some sort of guarantee of performance.Cost-Per-Action
CPA then seems to offer the best guarantee for advertisers. After all, with such a set up, the advertiser only pays when the prospect has performed a specific action such as registering or requesting information. And just to be explicit, the upside of this is that an ad can be displayed and clicked on many, many times with no cost to the advertiser. The problem here is that now all the risk has been shifted to the publisher since they now must give up their ad inventory and hope that the advertiser's message is compelling enough to result in "actions".Cost-Per-Click
CPC sits in the middle of the online pricing spectrum. It involves risk from the advertiser's side in that they pay for every click on their ad. This forces them to make sure that the ad is relevant to what is being offered so that a click has a good chance of turning in to an action. At the same time, the publisher takes on the responsibility of displaying the ad in appropriate places so that it will receive clicks. No clicks, no revenue. It's a very simple formula for both sides.
Monday, March 29, 2010
CPM vs. CPC vs. CPA
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sales Forecasting
Sales forecasting, an Introduction:
Forecasts are the raw material of planning. For most businesses, the sales forecast is the first step. It can be the basis for developing plans to run the business and plan future strategy. If sales can be reasonably anticipated, costs and inventory can be controlled, and customer service enhanced. Sales estimates provide this help.
Even if much of the content in this paper is familiar, a review will probably provide additional information that is helpful in learning about forecasting strategy and tactics. In recent years sales forecasting has become an important business endeavor. It is essential that company personnel and small business owners understand forecasting methodology.
Forecasts can be classified in several ways: by purpose, as either operational or strategic; by type, as quantitative (statistical) or qualitative (judgment); or by method, that is, by forecasting technique.
How to Conduct Market Research
Work Out What Information You Need Before You Start
Market research is no different from any other research project. To be successful, your research project needs a clear scope and that includes a problem statement.
What question are you looking for an answer to?
In the case of a new product or a new business, the question or questions are generally:
- Who will buy the product,
- Why will they buy it, and
- How much are they prepared to pay?
Before you start knocking on doors and showing people your product, take some time to really think about what it is that you want to ask of the market and design your research project accordingly.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Self-Hosted Versus Hosted Exchange by The Web Hosting News
Traits of Self-Hosted Exchange Server
- Large initial investment - You will have to purchase the hardware, software, acquire IT engineers and resources, and properly train all of the staff that will be managing your Exchange server. You may also experience a significant amount of time from when you make the initial investment to when the server goes live and becomes functional, especially if your staff is not completely training on how to handle the server.
- Ongoing expenses - The responsibility of maintaining and upgrading the Exchange server is yours, and after a while it can prove to be a surprisingly expensive server to maintain and run.
- Complete freedom over the customization and performance of your exchange server - Where managed servers have to deal with specific limitations placed upon them by their providers, running your own server will allow you to have total control over yours. You will be able to add, remove, and customize features as you see fit.
This will allow you to offer enhanced mobility services, VoIP, internet faxing, Outlook Web Access.
- Large personnel commitment – Take a moment to analyze the size of your company. How many staff members are you willing to dedicate solely to your Exchange server? Large companies may already have a large IT department that it can use to assign resources to the Exchange server with, but if your business doesn’t, you will have to bring on the staff to do it.
It is not that a self-hosted Exchange solution is always a poor choice or a bad option, as it certainly can fit the bill if a business has the resources to allocate to it. The reality is that you will have greater control and freedom when hosting the server yourself, but you will also have to dedicate more time and resources to it.
Traits of a Hosted Exchange Server
- Low start up investment - You may have to pay a small startup fee, but compared to the large investment required to purchase the server, software, and hire the appropriate staff, it is a drop in the bucket. As well, Hosted Exchanges are often set up in a matter of minutes once you’ve paid your startup fee, giving you access to your new toys quicker.
- Financial predictability - You will generally be given a monthly, quarterly, or yearly price. This makes budgeting a much easier task as there are fewer variables to consider and less guesswork involved. On that level, it’s nice to know exactly what your financial obligations are.
- Completely managed server - Just as the advantages of a managed web host include the fact that you don’t have to maintain the server or the software, a Hosted Exchange server generally comes with maintenance included. This absolves you from the responsibilities of monitoring security, uptime, server resource usage, and software upgrades.
- No outside commitments - You will not have to worry about staff allocation or the hiring of additional staff with a Hosted Exchange server. The company that owns the server takes care of all of the support obligations, including staff training and certification.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of hosting solution. If you prefer the control and knowledge knowing that you and you alone handle the processes and maintenance of your server, the additional expenses and requirements shouldn’t be much of an issue. However, if you prefer for something to ”just work” and don’t want to have to deal with the hassle of maintaining it or making the large initial purchase, you are going to want to use an exchange server that is provided by an external company.
