Metadverse - I don't get it

Okay, I have both advertisements and a billboard on Metadverse and some poor guy has to come and reapprove my stuff every ten minutes because I keep editing and reediting. The problem I am having is I don't quite understand how it works. I don't understand how I am being billed and how I am being paid. I know it has something to do with "CPM" or something. Okay, I am feeling really stupid right now.

Here are my new adverstisements. Give me your praise and approval because I feel really lame for not understanding a marketing website.

Kas - your ads look great to me. The only suggestion I'd make, is that the dark text in the first ad may be hard to read in a dark location. But other than that, they look great & professional.

Rathe'll probably chime in with some suggestions to your problems - but the way it works is basically this:

You get paid/charged based upon views ("impressions" to your ad. An impression is defined as one avatar looking at the ad for 15 seconds (unless Rathe has changed this).

The CPM is your "rate" per 1000 impressions. You set this on your ad when you create it (What you're willing to pay), and also on the ads you host (the minimum you're willing to take).

So - if you have a CPM of $250 per 1000 impressions - that means that each impression is paying/costing you L$0.25.

Some Tips:

-Where you're hosting ads, set the CPM as low as possible (preferably $0). Setting it too high will limit the ads that can show on your property - and less cash for you.

-When you're making your ad campaign - the higher you're willing to pay, the more places your ad will show... but if you're on a tight budget, a CPM of $250 a day will still get you plenty of exposure.

-Billboards seem to be most popular - so make sure you make one of those at minimum. There are 4 ad types - if you can find a creative way to use them all, its to your benefit. Just make sure your ad's "sensor ranges" don't overlap.

-Make use of the notecard giver script Rathe supplies. Notecards are a great way to secondary advertise - and you'll be able to update them all at a central location.

Hope this helps!

This sounds like it should be in classifieds or perhaps you should direct your query to rathe underthorn.


While I don't know anyone here, we need to be careful about this sort of Q&A in the general forum.

Otherwise, I guess, when I release my advertising network I'll have to try a question and answer tag team approach as well.

Thanks, that helped a lot. (I have to change my billboard price again though, doh). How does the sign know that someone is looking at it?

Oh, and I figured out how to make it give people stuff like landmarks and notecards. That was easy. It's the damn number crunching that I just didn't get. I didn't know what to put for my billboard so I put 0 then 50 then 5 then 10 then 250 the 0 again. I mean I really had no idea what to do.

I'm glad you're tackling this. I wanted to use metadverse too. I sat and wrestled with all these steps for an hour, then gave up. One of the jams I had was that it was asking me to get a copy off my UI of a texture in my game inventory and get that number, but I couldn't seem to get the game to generate it.

It was too complicated, not explained well, so I gave up.

The publishing part was easy because I have dealt with similar things in the past, script wise. If you want help with that, I can help you. The UUID of the texture can be copied by right clicking the texture and selecting "Copy UUID".

One item I find confusing is the Impressions bit: How can the script tell if an avatar is even observing the ad?

A sensor can detect positioning and rotation. However, both have nothing to do with the location the avatar is currently looking at (with free camera controls), and cannot even tell if the ad sign rezzed for the avatar or not.

I cant see how much good this can do if its hard to tell any of this statistics accuratly?

Right click on object in inventory, select "copy uid". Paste into chat window/notecard/script editor/etc. Or did you know that and it was somehow not working?

I think he was trying to do it a harder way like with a script or something.

From my observations as first a Publisher, and now an Advertiser - it is imperfect. I think its as accurate as it can be however, given the current LSL toolset.

Basically, I'm paying for my ad being displayed while it's within an agent's field of view - I think if it was explained that way, it would make more sense. Of course, just because the ad is within their view - doesn't mean they're paying attention to it - or that its even rezzed yet. Clicks, while detected and tracked on the report - appear to have no bearing on what you pay or receive.

As far as my ads being effective... that's really hard to quantify directly. I do perceive a difference, however - prior to running my first ad campaign, I *rarely* saw anyone stop in with a birthdate older than 2004. While they're still rare - I see a lot more of them than I used to.

I've also been seeing in increase in the number of newbies that are referred to us, or folks that have brought their friends to the Shelter to show them SL for the first time. The newbie parties have been a lot more productive, with more folks comfortable enough to ask SL questions because they know its encouraged

And the kicker for me - that turned me into a solid Metaadverse convert - was Payment Podium. Often, the host will make chit-chat with the contestant in between the questions - and on the night in question, the contestant was asked "So where did you hear about Payment Podium?".... the contestant responded, "...I saw your Ad". That made everything worth it.

You do get some pretty detailed statistics once you're up & running. For advertisers, you can see exactly where your ad got "hits" and when, and by who (can't get complete avatar names - but it does provide initials, so you can discern duplicates). Publishers also get stats on when the ads they're hosting are hitting, and for which publisher.

With the events changes in January, i switched my funding model completely over to metaadverse for the Shelter, and haven't looked back since. I really believe in the service

If anyone needs any in-game help with setting stuff up, and you can't get a hold of Rathe - I'm glad to help if I can. Just send me an IM.

From a graphic design perspective, I'd like to offer a little bit of advice.

- 3 fonts maximum. One font for your title, one for text, and perhaps one for your name if you wish to separate it. More than 3 fonts tends to look jumbled and busy.

- Try looking for some interesting fonts on some free font websites. Your fonts look a lot like the stock fonts everyone has on their computer.

- Too many "effects" on the fonts. You have shaded fonts, a block of text with a gradient across it, and a drop shadow on your name. I suggest using perhaps only the drop shadow... make the drop shadow a darker shade of the red background color, and use it only in one place, like your name.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

Ok, now see, I have absolutely no idea what any of you are talking about at all, at all, at all! Again! For the two hundredth time!!!

You'd think I'd get intimidated by SL and everything connected to it, cause it's like y'all live in some other universe or something! Not only have I never heard of Metadverse, I don't know what it is or understand anything in this whole thread! You'd think I'd give up and go away eventually, huh. hahahaha

BUT

You did say something about wanting praise and that I understand, and I CAN heap praise and acclaim on that advertisement for "Architect for Hire!" That is adorable! Perfect! I love how you're holding the house in your hand, and I love the little house, too! It's just adorable, the whole ad!

I want - I want I want I want - to build little houses someday and provide you some hefty competition. I can only hope to ever be able to build houses as cute as that one! (Never mind making the adorable advertisement and not to MENTION knowing what Metadverse is and then dealing with whatever it is; I just want to at least get the houses made. )

coco

hehe, I know how you feel. But one day you will get those houses built and you will want as many people as possible to see your new creation. Sometimes when I make things I feel like a kindergartner who just painted a new picture and wants to run home and show mommy.

Thats where MetaAdverse comes in. To show as many mommies as possible your new drawing. Its a website http://www.metaadverse.com/ where you can pay money for your ad to show on billboards all over SL. Also you can make money by hosting a billboard on your land. And while setting up isn't too difficult I didn't understand how the system worked so I wasn't sure which prices would be "best".

Your ads look great!! You have a lot of photo shop talent I'd hire ya!!

*blush*

Without getting into the math which is too complicated beyond the scope of this thread the signs do use a pretty smart algorithm for determining that an avatar is within range of the front side of the sign within a 180 degree field of vision and are facing towards it enough that it is in their field of vision. Obviously this doesn't garauntee they are paying any attention to it, but that's another subject and debate about the effects of brand advertising.

The reason for the minimum 15 seconds is to (in most conditions) give the textures time to load. The more your campaign is shown though throughout the world the more likely most viewers will already have the image loaded in their cache and should not have to wait for it to load. As Second Life improves in latency we will hopefully be able to improve and tweak this time as well.

I've recently added a small blurb to the campaign creation page describing how one can retrive the Texture UUID from within Second Life. I realize this is confusing at first for most users but unfortunately is a limitation we have to deal with. Idealy I would love to allow you to simply upload your images to MetaAdverse directly to make it easier but there is no way for our system to upload them into Second Life automatically.

For those that are still confused about it. Simply upload your texture into Second Life. When it is finished uploading, right click it in your inventory window (Control-I will open your inventory) and select 'Copy Asset UUID' from the menu that pops up. This will copy the Texture UUID into your copy & paste buffer so that you can paste it (Control-V) into the Texture UUID field on the campaign creation form. Please make sure that 'Copy' and 'Transfer' permissions are enabled for the texture so that our signs are able to display it.

Because MetaAdverse is a marketing website I tried to design it for advertisers and publishers alike and use common terminalogy used in this field. I realize this may be confusing to many new to the tricky art of marketing and I would love to simplify this for you any way that I can. Suggestions are most welcome and I'm willing to make the changes necessary.

Currently I've tried to explain most of the terminalogy on the FAQ page. I'm also thinking about some sort of easy to read math table that will hopefully work out most of the math involved in calculating total daily impressions, estimated costs, and budgets using the CPM, daily budget, total budget, daily impressions, and total impressions values. Do you think this would help a lot? Any other ideas?

PS. I love the feedback! Keep it coming please

Also, I'm more than happy to provide my personal recommendations for getting the most of your campaign or signs depending on what your ultimate goal you hope to achieve with them is. Feel free to IM me, Rathe Underthorn, in world or email [email]support@metaadverse.com[/email] at any time.

Marketing is a tricky but highly effective business if done correctly. I can only offer my best advise but cannot gaurantee sales due to market conditions, supply and demand, and well, quality of the product or service which is generally the major factor in sales. I do currently work in and have worked in online marketing for the past 6 years so I believe I have a pretty good sense of what will work and won't work.

Oh! Well, that Metadverse does sound pretty cool, then, Kassandra. One of the things I like best about this game is just stuff like that, that enables one to get the word out about stuff, IN game, rather than simply relying on advertising in the forums, which people may or may not read.

coco