Digg are to commence rolling out an early beta version of a new advertising platform. The new advertisements will only be available to view by a select number of users as part of an initial trial.

Ads will appear within the submitted content results of Digg and will be very clearly marked as sponsored advertising. What is particularly interesting is the bidding model which has been adopted as part of the trial. Advertisers will be charged a cost for each time an ad is clicked, cpc basis, but unusually ad placement will be dictated by user popularity.

Unpopular ads will appeal lower in the list and will pay more for their position and popular ads will display higher in the list but will cost the advertiser less money. This is quite an unusual approach and we are quite eager to see this working in practise. We will be particularly interested in how a new ad is positioned, within the ad listings, by an existing advertiser and how a new advertiser is positioned, within the ad listings, when first joining the campaign? We would hope that a long term advertising relationship with Digg would also bring a loyalty bonus to the advertiser, but as yet these details are not available.

Article by Matt Blay – Creative SEO UK