Pay-Per-Play Advertising - Internet Advertising's New Wave?

By Dyfed Lloyd Evans

There has been quite a buzz on the internet over the past week about a new advertising phenomenon called 'Pay-per-Play'. In an industry where most hype is about the same old re-packaged information presented in a new guise the advent of Pay-per-Play advertising is something completely new and exciting.

The providers of this service are a company called 'NetAudioAds' and though they are in late beta testing as of now the system will go live very shortly. But what are they offering, and what does it mean for you, the internet marketers and website owners?

The premise of the system is that you sign-up to the ad providing network (just as you to do Google or any of the other internet ad systems out there) then you get a short piece of JavaScript that you place at the foot of out HTML page, just before the < /body > and < /html > closing tags. This javascript works like Google's AdSense JavaScript in that it allows a short five-second audio ad to be played on your website.

Currently at least pay-per-play ads are compatible with AdSense ads so they can be placed on the same page. The ad plays as soon as your web page loads and the person visiting your site or web page hear a short (five second) audio message. These messages come from a range of advertisers and you are paid an advertising commission each and every time the ad is played. Basically you're paid for each and every visitor coming to your site.

The commission on the pay-per-play ads look generous as well in that you will earn 25% of the bid price of the ad. However, there is no indication as yet how much these ads will cost the advertisers in terms of bids.

Currently ads are being assigned to random sites on a testing basis but when the system goes live very soon you should see ads coming to your site. As an internet advertiser these ads could be a very good thing as long as the audio snippets don't put people off your site. However, the duration of the ads (5s only) should make it less likely that they will scare potential visitors away.

Any new revenue stream is always welcome and the advent of pay-per-play adverts could be a very good thing to may website owners' bottom line. However, it's very early days for this kind of advertising. But it's definitely a development that's well worth watching and possibly testing out on your own website.

Only time will tell if pay-per-play advertising becomes as huge and popular a phenomenon as pay-per-click advertising.... But I believe that this system has the potential to be huge and to be a good income earner for webmasters of all sizes.