In this eCommerce model, you will usually see a company offering some sort of free service, tool or information and their revenues are generated through advertisers. They may use Google AdSense or they may develop advertising packages where companies can place banner ads, text ads or other advertising throughout the site for a specific fee.

Traffic is the key to the success of this model - page views and clicks through draw advertisers so the service or information must have real value. These could be local newspapers, blogs that cover specific topics or informational sites.

In many ways, the product is the information in these cases, so the best sites that depend on this model are those that have real experts generating content or excellent writers. In some case, poor sites can manage to get good listings in Google and still manage to make a profit, but that just means the door is open for real information providers to jump into the fray.

Some good examples of the advertising model:

http://www.ezinearticles.com/

EzineArticles.com is an interesting content portal. It is based on the tenets and success of article marketing, a concept where companies or writers syndicate their work throughout the web to generate public relations benefits and inbound links back to their home website.

EzineArticles.com encourages authors to submit their work and then, as they publish articles, contextual ads are pushed onto the pages as well. The sheer volume of content provided on this site helps it to generate traffic. The only downside is that this is syndicated content, rather than purely original which means it won't secure the same success as a site that generates only its own information.

http://www.webmd.com/

WebMD.com offers an information portal related to health issues. The site caters to all ages and covers a great many topics. The right column of the site offers various spotlight articles on health concerns and also advertises medications that relate to those conditions. For instance you might see a sleep poll that is brought to you by Tylenol PM or a blurb on bladder control that is sponsored by Novartis, the makers of Enablex. You can then click through and see a profile page of a specific drug.

On other parts of the site, they also have rotating banner ads with information relating to other medications. They offer full disclosure about their Sponsors so you can identify sponsor or sponsor influenced content.

http://www.cnn.com/

CNN.com is one of the largest web news portals out there and they maintain their website through advertising revenues. You can find a rotating banner ad above the fold on the main page and you'll find text ads below the main story. For the most part, these are contextual ads as well, fed through an advertising service like AdSense.

http://gawker.com/

Gawker.com is a great example of a niche information or gossip site. They are powered by advertisers as well - some are the companies or individuals about whom they write. This is a niche website, really geared towards New Yorkers and the media players in that city. While they have a self limited readership, they have loyal readers and niche advertisers so the relationship is successful for everyone involved.

Critical Success Factors

Purchasing Management - Within the advertising eCommerce business model, the content itself is the product, therefore it is imperative that you have resources from which you can purchase or solicit content. In some instances, you can position your advertising portal with forums in mind, generating an additional channel for the production of content, as well as securing the potential of return visitors to the website.

Monitoring the process of hiring and assessing the success of the writer and their content is the other piece of purchasing management as the quality of the work, timeliness of production and delivery and the prompt payment of your resources will correlate directly to the success of the site.

From a technical standpoint, you'll need to ensure/consider that you have:

• Content Management Solutions
• Analytics to Assess Content Popularity (and therefore author or developer) and Success
• Methods to Solicit Service Providers
• Accounting Software to Gather Critical Service Provider Data and Payment Reporting Data
• Reporting to Optimize Purchasing Process

Supply Chain Management - In the advertising model the supply chain, like the purchasing management, relates to the content itself, or the technology necessary to support the success of the website. If you have a tool, like Edmunds.com for finding cars, your supply chain management is going to relate to finding the right developers to build the tool, securing relationships with car dealers regionally, getting the data to your website and providing that data to the customer.

Likewise if you are a different brand of information portal, you need to obtain the information, ensure that is of high quality, publish it to the website properly and thus provide it for the end consumer.

From a technical standpoint, you'll need to ensure/consider that you have:

• Primary Assessment of Extensible and Flexible Development Platform and Code Structure
• Tools to manage (Content Based Advertising Site):
  • Editorial Process and Feedback Loop of Content
  • Publishing of Content
  • Feedback on Content
• Tools to manage (Tool Based Advertising Site):
  • Feedback on Tool
  • Enhancements/Additions to Tool
  • Functionality of Tool
  • Delivery of Tool Online at Optimal Speed

Product Design and Development - The product design and development stage within the advertising model relates to the tone and content of the site and identifying the consumer niche to which you wish to appeal. You'll want to have an initial niche identified at launch and then you'll want to pay attention to your users to identify subtopic and sub-niches that are of interest.

For instance, WebMD.com is appealing to almost all people and publishes content related to health topics of all kinds. As holistic medicine has increased in popularity, they have worked to design and develop content relating to that topic to ensure they are appealing to that subset demographic.

From a technical standpoint, you'll need to ensure/consider that you have:

• Forum Capability
• User Feedback Solicitation
• Data Architecture that Allows for Growth and Evolution
• Content Management Solutions
• Subscriber Ability to Niche Subtopics

Forecasting and Scheduling - Estimating Demand and Preparation - In the advertising model, there needs to comprehension of demand relating to both traffic and advertising. As you grow the site with rich content, the traffic will exponentially increase and you must prepare the site for that onset, ensuring that the site speed is maintained.

Also, as the traffic increases, so will the demand from advertisers so you must ensure there is space for advertising to fill that demand as well as ensuring that the quality of clicks through and page views is maintained to offer good value to both consumer and advertiser.

From a technical standpoint, you'll need to ensure/consider that you have:

• Analytics to Assess Traffic and Content Popularity
• Reporting on Seasonality
• Server and/or Hosting Management to Ensure Speed and Functionality of the Site
• Reporting on Advertising Clicks Through, Page views and transactions to maximize value to all "customers"

"Inventory" Management and Control - In the advertising model, inventory becomes the content of the site. It must be consistent and of good quality to ensure repeat visitors to the site and to build a loyal following.

In some cases, you may want to manage your content in such a way that you have items to publish several days ahead but in the case of a news organization, you'll need to manage your inventory on a day to day or even hour to hour basis on the internet. In this case, inventory, or supply also relates to the speed of your site and its ability to handle burgeoning traffic.

From a technical standpoint, you'll need to ensure/consider that you have:

• Publishing Tools (Scheduled or Timed)
• Site Speed Measurement
• Analytics Tool

Quality Management - In the instance of the advertising model, the quality relates to the content or the tool that draws traffic to the site. The quality of the content provided relating to the target audience is what will draw repeat direct traffic to the site.

While some sites will use various techniques to secure listings on the search engines to get initial traffic, they will not be successful in the long run because consumers or readers will not return to the site to consistently build traffic and therefore a high number of advertisers.

From a technical standpoint, you'll need to ensure/consider that you have:

• Analytics to assess popularity of content
• Analytics to assess overall positions in the search engines
• User feedback solicitation tools
• Forums

Human Resource Management - Human resource planning relates to all businesses, small or large and independent of business model. If you have people in your organization or if you plan to grow, you need to be able to plan for, organize and direct your human resources.

From a technical standpoint, you'll need to ensure/consider that you have:

• Project Management Tools
• Customer Service Software for managing "cases" and/or customer service representatives
• Accounting Software for managing payroll issues or Contract with a Payroll Company
• Benefits Considerations like Health Insurance, 401K Plans etc.
• Benefits of Contractor vs. Full Time vs. Part Time Employees

Reengineering and Consulting - Managing operations in such a way that someone can look at the overall direction of the site, the success of advertisers, the popularity of the content and making it all work together.

From a technical standpoint, you'll need to ensure/consider that you have:

• Customer service software or feedback tool. This means the feedback can be organized and decisions can be based on fact.
• Analytics and Reporting