BERGEN, Norway — PlugRush.com today announced that its ad network, traffic-trading and content marketing platform has added new tools that allow advertisers to target an audience based on sexual orientation.
With this latest addition, advertisers can choose from straight, gay or shemale/transsexual traffic when creating their campaigns.
"This is a tool that our customers have wanted for a long time, and it makes perfect sense because the market for adult services that specifically target gay customers is massive," said Thomas Skavhellen, chief brand manager for PlugRush. "Perhaps even more important, the conversion rates for both gay and shemale/transsexual traffic is well known to be higher than straight traffic."
Skavhellen said it can be challenging to market specifically to the gay community outside of the Internet, because offline there are few methods for targeting ads based on sexuality. Online, that’s not a problem since the content that consumers choose to enjoy can help identify their sexual orientation, he said.
PlugRush advertisers that choose to target a specific sexual orientation can still make use of the network’s subcategories to further target their ads at a specific content niche. In addition, advertisers can choose mobile or desktop traffic and limit campaigns to specific countries.
"If you’re not convinced of the importance and influence of the gay market, consider what happened to U.S. radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger several years ago when she referred to gay people as 'biological errors' once on her show," adds Skavhellen. "That comment, and others like it, cost her major advertisers like Xerox and GEICO, companies that did not want to risk upsetting the gay market by appearing to support hate speech.
“Keeping the gay community friendly towards their brands was more important to those companies than whatever gains they made advertising to Dr. Laura’s listeners. In adult, the gay market is not any less important to companies looking to grow their revenue and engage a potentially loyal base of customers."
To encourage advertisers to try PlugRush.com’s traffic for themselves, the company has extended its special offer from April, which lowered the minimum bid for desktop traffic to just $1 for 1,000 plug clicks and just 10 cents for 1,000 pops. Visit PlugRush.com to sign up.