Līve Ambitions

You can think of advertorials as a cross between an informative article and a sales copy. Advertorials usually start off by presenting a problem, and ends with a solution of some kind.  The solution they offer is typically a sales pitch to subtly persuade the reader into buying something.

To give you a better picture of what I’m talking about, here are 2 ads that are frequently seen on Yahoo.  The ads themselves are not advertorials, but once clicked, you are directed to the corresponding advertorial page.

The 1st is an ad from HowLifeWorks.com, and the other is by ARALifeStyle.com.  ARALifeStyle was the 1st to use these types of ads, but HowLifeWorks was quick to jump on the business model.  It was kind of innovative because the design of the ads sort of made you feel like those articles were just a part of Yahoo.

Once you click on one of those links, you are directed to a simple looking website. The landing page offers an article, a few related articles, and some sponsored PPC ads.

So you may be asking “what is the big deal?”  Well, there really isn’t.  Simply put, these websites are nothing more than beefed up arbitrage sites.  Except, instead of flipping PPC traffic, these websites are buying CPM traffic and flipping them to PPC and affiliate revenue.  We can easily spot the PPC ads, but the affiliate links are embedded within the article itself.  So, someone who has no clue about affiliate marketing would have no idea that the article’s true intention is to promote an advertiser’s service or product.

The advertorial business model is not entirely new though.  We see it almost everyday.  Websites like eHow, About.com and HowStuffWorks.com all have the similar business models.  When you break it down, they are all websites that provide informative articles about certain topics, and they all make money from PPC ads.  The only difference is that these sites do not include sales verbiage in their articles.  For this reason, we do not look down on eHow or About.com like we do the advertorial sites.

What are your thoughts on advertorial sites?