Publisher Spotlight
Philippe Daix
Publisher
HoopsVibe.com
TopSpeed.com
One of Yahoo! Publisher Network’s top revenue performers, Philippe Daix, has made a livelihood by understanding what 
drives sports fans. From his single account, Philippe publishes ads to two sports-related Web sites.
HoopsVibe.com, which Philippe launched with pal, Romain Rousseau, in 2001, is targeted at the basketball fanatic. Whether it’s news and rumors about pro hoops or videos of street ball action, tips on vintage-style b-ball gear or a rough-and-tumble open forum that lets fans go strong to the basket on their pet players, HoopsVibe.com’s got it.
“I first started this publisher activity to fill my spare time,” the 33-year-old explains from his home in Miami, “then my best friend, Romain, came up with the basketball idea. He’s the basketball fan. A few years later, I decided to setup TopSpeed.com, because I am more into cars and speed.”
TopSpeed.com is to car crazies is what HoopsVibe.com is to basketball fans–a space where enthusiasts can read about racing, argue over cars, play driving games, examine auto specs, view videos of car crashes (may favorite page, I have to admit) and more, all in a media- and interaction-rich environment.
One of the things you’ll notice on both sites is the interesting mix of contextual ads. While many pages feature basketball- and automotive-specific ads, others feature ads about fitness equipment, health programs and even grooming products.
“We found out that our audience is interested in health and beauty, even though that is not the main topic of our Web sites,” Philippe explains. “Sports fans and car fans are very much into the way they look–on the playground or at the traffic light.”
Philippe uses the Ad Targeting feature to tweak the ads that appear on his pages: “The tool helped us find a compromise between ad relevance and ad revenue. We’re always testing to explore categories revolving around our content… The ultimate engine in all this is the opportunity to make a living out of it.”
Key take-aways from this successful publisher? Be passionate about what you do and, above all, know your users.
Know a publisher in our Network that would make a good Spotlight? Maybe it’s you! Send us your nominations.
—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor
| Post Comment | categories:: Publisher Spotlight
April 25th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
I’d be interested in knowing what a top revenue publisher makes using Ads by Yahoo!… just curious
Also, I’d like to know how they came to know what other categories their visitors were interested in… did they use a questionnaire or something?
Anyone have any ideas on how to learn more about what a publisher’s visitors are interested in? I think that to this point most of my success using contextual ads have been due to high traffic and well-placed ads. I’m interested in experimenting and learning more about serving non-contextual ad categories that my visitors will appreciate…
April 26th, 2006 at 6:53 am
I would suggest you go and print out the entire list of Ad Targeting categories, then simply highlight the one you think your visitor might be interested in. Then switch category every two days and compare the performance. That is as simple as that.
I am sure you cna eliminate a lot categories and remain with only 10 or 15 to test.
Good luck
Philippe.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:14 am
ahhh… so it was just trial and error and experimentation? I thought you may have provided a ‘Help Us Serve You Better’ type questionnaire or something (which I’d prefer not to do)…
Since reading this blog entry I’ve been looking into the other categories. I have a pretty good idea of my users’ interests so I’ll see what works.
Thanks!
July 8th, 2006 at 3:31 am
Hello Philipe
I am a novice in this field and I want to become a publisher..I have a search engine and few websites..its all in budding stage..Please advice me how to proceed.