There’s an old joke repeated at management schools about the CEO who said after a meeting with his advertising agency, “I know half my advertising works, I just don’t know which half”.
As more and more people are realising, web-based advertising doesn’t need to be like that, which is one reason why it has been growing so quickly. By digging into traffic flow data, you can get precise details on where visitors come and what they do on the site. But you can monitor a whole range of other data to see what’s working and what isn’t. It’s a key part of understanding monetisation.
I’ve owned and run my own sites, run sites and diagnosed performance for others. Here’s potted guide to my observations about what works in on-line monetising.
Donations: surprisingly, there are many people out there who appreciate a useful free online service or open-source software. I have found that ‘some’ people – admittedly not ‘most’ - respond by making donations, but it needs to be easy to do so and you must not be shy about asking. You need a prominent donate button. General experience is that it’s better to suggest small minimum amount (so that people who might be prepared to contribute a small amount don’t shy away because of feeling cheap) than a larger amount, or indeed leaving the amount of the donation open. You’ll most likely see the average donation low but overall you will get more than if you just get a few larger ones.
Sponsorship: It’s very comforting to get sponsorship because it’s a validation of what you’re doing. But you need to ensure that it’s in keeping with what the site is about. You must also be comfortable that whatever banners are agreed upon do not obstruct the flow or experience of the site.
Advertising: There are a few things to say about this. Firstly, experience suggests that bold, in-your-face advertising is more likely to yield results than more discreet ads in the sidebar. Again, however, it is important to ensure the ads are not so deep into visitor’s face that they feel overwhelmed and stop coming back. Some flash adverts can be tiresome. It’s balance, as always.
For contextual ads you can go to the two major players: Google AdSense or Yahoo! Publisher Network. For most sites, neither of these are gold mines, though I don’t mean to belittle them: they are a good product. Generally they are an add-on to other monetisation strategies. Experience is revenue per unit is a little higher from Yahoo! but that Google are a little more on the money when it comes to relevance.
And there’s one other noticeable bit of evidence – people using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer click on more ads than Firefox users. And by a factor of least four, according to some research done late last in Germany by a company named Adtech on 1,000 European web sites using its server. This is probably a result of mixture of technical reasons – to do with pop-up blockers – and different surfing habits.
If you have a good quality, high traffic site, you can tap into Text Link, which has delivered good financial results to a number of sites. Text Link Ads are static html links that drive targeted traffic and help link popularity, a top factor in organic search engine rankings. High traffic sites are, not surprisingly, in demand from others looking for traffic.
Kontera In-Text ads are another monetisation option. They seem like a great idea, based as they are on tapping into key words in text and linking relevant ads, but beware, there’s a lot of blogging traffic that suggests many users find these a complete pain in the neck and a definite turn-off. There is some feeling out there in cyberspace that in-text ads devalue the ‘real’ or ‘editorial’ links.
Conclusion: Everything here is a generalisation, and every monetisation opportunity needs to be considered on its individual merits. There’s no ‘one size fits all solution’. You aim to maximise your revenue opportunities without stifling the product itself. You can’t afford to risk the goose that is laying the golden egg.
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Monetisation
