Our website generates large numbers of page impressions and we are keen to monetise this and generate alterative revenue streams. What’s the best way to go about this?
I spoke to John Newton at ClickThrough Marketing and he has shared his key ways to monetise a website that is generating significant traffic.
SELF SERVICE NETWORKS
Try the DIY approach, click here for the main companies. The largest self service ad network is AdSense. Others include
- Adbrite
- Bidvertiser
- Chitika
- Kontera
Most of these are US focussed but they will have UK coverage as it is the second biggest ad market.
They are easy to sign up to, but if you have “premium” inventory then these may well undervalue your website.
The main reason to use them is to add reach and provide backfill when other networks fail to sell your inventory. Plus some offer formats (e.g. interstitials, pagepeels, incontent text ads) that may not be offered by other mainstream networks, which can provide extra ad revenue, but don’t forget that these ad types can also irritate users.
GO DIRECT
You could speak to some ad networks directly and see if they are interested in representing you. The biggest UK ad networks are IASH members – you can see a list of them here which will also have contact details for each one: http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/iashmember.html.
The biggest networks are
- Specific Media
- 24-7 Real Media
- ValueClick
- Unanimis
- Tribal Fusion and
- Adconion.
They generally have a form on their sites for your client to apply to become a publisher.
TIP
Do check their Behavioural Targeting capabilities – networks such as http://www.criteo.com/ and http://www.audiencescience.com/ are doing a great job at the moment using data about what a consumer is doing online to serve vastly more relevant ads – which sell for considerably more than standard geo/category/keyword/demo based targeting.
AD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Consider using an ad management system on your site to manage the process.
Rather than working with just one network, you can use a solution such as “DoubleClick for Publishers” (another free Google service) that will juggle first-party ads (direct sales) and third-party ads (AdSense and other networks) and show the ad that it believes will yield the most for every single ad impression based on past data.
There are other services like this too - http://yieldbuild.com/, http://www.pubmatic.com/, http://www.admeld.com/ and http://www.rubiconproject.com/. Again, they work to automate the decision making in which ad to show from the different ad networks that your client is signed up with.
SIGN UP WITH AN AD EXCHANGE
These provide publishers with a way to open up their inventory to a number of different buyers at once – agencies, networks, direct buyers. There are a number of them out there – mainly run by the big search firms:
- http://rightmedia.com/
- http://advertising.microsoft.com/exchange, http://www.google.com/doubleclick/advertisers/ad_exchange.html - but also http://www.contextweb.com/ad-exchange and
- http://www.openx.com/
Some of these are more complex, but they provide the most power.
Do you use ad revenue generation tools? What works for your business?Labels: ad exchange, clickthrough marketing, doubleclick, online advertising