Website
www.fastclick.comAbout
Founded in 1999, FastClick has quickly grown as a well known advertising network serving small to medium sized publishers. They provide CPM and CPC based campaigns with a widest range of ad formats. Their ad rates are comparable to the other networks and their ad fill rates are among the best. FastClick is not an advertising agency and so do not provide targeted ads for publishers. However, they do geo-targeting for campaigns.
Ad Formats
FastClick provides the following ad formats or types:
1. Standard 468x60 banners
2. Super 728x90 banners (in combination with 468x60)
3. SkyScraper (120x600) and Wide SkyScraper (160x600)
4. Medium Rectangle (300x250)
5. Pop-under
6. Invue
7. Interstitial
The standard and super banners are not that good and often have extreme animation. However, they provide the easiest way to filter any ad that a publisher would not like to show on their website. Filtering can be done by an auto-select criteria, such as, filter all ads that have extreme animation, casino content, alcohol or tobacco related. This feature makes FastClick stand out from other networks. Also the publisher can view each campaign banner and disable individual campaigns. The in-vue and interstitial formats are the newest addition to the ad delivery types. Invue is an inline ad which scrolls into the center of the browser window and is less intrusive than a popup. Intertitials are full page ads launched between pages. The user is returned back to the next page after viewing the ad. Publishers can also specify their own default banners.
FastClick introduced two new formats (wide skyscraper and medium rectangle) in February, 2004. The specifications for these formats are below:
* GIF, animated GIF, JPEG, HTML, Rich Media.
* 25K file size limit if served by Fastclick.
* Unlimited media looping.
* CPC: 24-hr cookie frequency cap or 24-hr IP address frequency cap (adjustable).
* CPM: 1-hr cookie frequency cap or 1-hr IP address frequency cap (adjustable)
Rates
FastClick pays 65% of the revenue collected from the advertisers. The average ad rates (after their 35% cut) measured in eCPM (effective CPM) for various display types are as follows (this may vary for your website):
1. Standard 468x60 banners: $0.50/CPM
2. Super 728x90 banners: 0.75/CPM
3. Pop-under: $3.60/CPM
4. SkyScraper: $0.36/CPM
5. Invue: $1.80/CPM
6. Interstitial: $3.00/CPM
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The rates for banners are not that good, however, their pop-unders perform very well. The payments are sent by check, or PayPal once the amount reaches $50. They also provide a referral program, which pays 5% of the net earnings generated from each referral indefinitely.
Other
FastClick uses one of the latest technologies to deliver ads, so ads load fast. The campaigns are optimized for the best performance and hence provide better revenue for website publishers. Their system would run the highest paying ads first before all are exhausted. There are frequency caps on campaigns and so pop-unders and in-vue ads are run on a 12 hours basis. Unlike other ad networks, FastClick is honest in terms of not displaying any ad that is not counted. For example, it will not show more than one pop-under in a 12 hour period instead of showing multiple but counting only once.
Problems Reported
FastClick invue codes have some problem on Opera browsers, where a square blank window appears on the top left corner. FastClick has been notified of this error. Also the invue code often does not close with a click on the cross mark on the top right corner on some websites. This might be due to conflicting JavaScript codes on these websites. A publisher should test all ad codes before using on the website.
Summary
FastClick is one of the best choices for website publishers to generate a revenue stream. Publishers can use FastClick as their primary provider of ads.
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