Website monetization

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Website monetization is the process of converting existing traffic being sent to a particular website into revenue. The most popular ways of monetizing a website are by implementing pay per click (PPC) and cost per impression (CPI/CPM) advertising. Various ad networks facilitate a webmaster in placing advertisements on pages of the website to benefit from the traffic the site is experiencing.

Contents

The two most important metrics that matter to a web publisher looking to monetize their site is "Fill Rate", or the % of inventory where ads can be shown by a partner advertising network, and eCPM, which is the effective cost per thousand impression dollar amount that is paid out to the publisher for showing ads to their audience.

Additionally, aside from typical ad display and various advertising generated revenue, some webmasters or site owners utilize Lead Generation to monetize Internet traffic to a website by creating leads or inquiries from submission forms or phone calls from interested consumers and then delivering those leads to a business seeking that type of inquiry.

Pay per click advertising

Pay per click or PPC (also called Cost per click) is a marketing strategy put in place by search engines and various advertising networks such as Google Ads, where an advertisement, usually targeted by keywords or general topic, is placed on a relevant website or within search engine results. The advertiser then pays for every click that is made on the advertisement. This paid click activity fuels many revenue generating programs such as Google AdSense.

Cost per impression advertising

Cost per impression (also called cost per mille) is a marketing strategy put in place by various advertising networks, where an advert is placed on a relevant website, usually targeted to the content sector of that site. The advertiser then pays for every time the advert is displayed to a user. Most system will use a method known as cost per thousand impressions. If a website publisher charges $4.00 CPM, the advertiser is paying $4.00 for every 1,000 ad impressions (each time the ad is shown 1,000 times). [1]

Banner advertising consists of placing a graphical banner advertisement on a webpage. The role of this banner is to catch the eye of incoming traffic to the page, enticing readers to click the advertisement. This form of monetization is implemented by both affiliate programs and advertising networks. Banners originally just referred to advertisements of 468 x 60 pixels, but the term is now widely used to refer to all sizes of display advertising on the internet. [2]

Typical web banner, sized 468x60 pixels. Qxz-ad39.png
Typical web banner, sized 468×60 pixels.

Banner ads come in various shapes and sizes and are sized according to pixel dimensions. [3] Typical banner sizes include:

Various Banner Ad Networks : BuySellAds.com, Blogads [5] "BING ads by Microsoft", [6]

Affiliate programs

Affiliate programs are another popular way of monetizing existing website traffic. By joining a business' affiliate program, any searches for products within that business' catalog may earn affiliates a commission on each sale that was originally referred through their website.

Data monetization

Websites also generate valuable user data that can be monetized through various methods. Data generated by websites about their users can range from being demographics to in-market data (e.g. in-market for a car). [7] This data can be sold through behavioral data exchanges and used by advertisers to target their online media campaigns. Websites can also generate revenue from their newsletter and on-site registrations programs by finding companies who are eager to reach the newsletters subscriber base. [8] Another method of monetizing data is through the use of a surveywall instead of a paywall, asking users to take a short survey, rather than paying the website directly. The website is then paid by the surveywall operator (such as Survata).

Paid membership or 'continuity' programs are another way to monetize existing traffic. Examples of media membership sites are the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. [9] In the gaming world, Blizzard's World of Warcraft has millions of members. However, there are many other kinds of member sites that cover niche markets. Often people join to get access to content and expertise, or for community, such as discussion or bulletin boards. The term "continuity" is used because the goal is to develop income continuity. Instead of making a one-time sale of a product or service, the membership site brings new, repeated income every month. Besides news, other kinds of membership site include: health, fitness, marketing, copy writing, social media expertise, paper products, dating, paper crafting, scrap booking, coaching, writing and many other applications.

Experts in the membership site field say that "people come for content and stay for community." [10] The challenge of a member site is to retain paying members. Some sites, like the New York Times, offers some content free and then charges a fee for more in-depth access, or access to special kinds of content. [11] Some sites offer downloads of audio or video content, free graphics, free software that is only available to members with a Creative Market. Many sites also offer webinars to members. The webinars are often recorded as video, audio and also transcribed, creating more special content that is behind the pay wall.

Fees for membership vary widely. They can be billed monthly, annually, or even lifetime memberships. The digital access to the website is sometimes sold as part of a combination package that also includes physical product. For example, the Wall Street Journal offers a combination paper subscription, which is delivered to the subscriber's door, combined with access to the website and the smartphone app versions of the paper for about $140. Another site that sells membership to large corporations in the mobile phone industry, charges up to $12,000.00 a year for membership, which gives tech employees the right to pay to attend conferences on different aspects of the technology of cellular phones, and to access, on the website, recordings of past meetings. Business sites may offer a special information package, perhaps CDs or DVDs shipped to the new member as part of a package that includes membership.

Affiliate marketing is sometimes used to build membership in membership sites. [12] Some sites continue to pay a percentage to the referring affiliate as long as the member continues paying monthly fees. Others pay a larger up-front fee. The page that marketers use a marketing or social media "funnel" to bring potential new paying members to is called a "squeeze" page.

Donations

Websites can also ask visitors to donate money to them. Popular donations services such as PayPal offer different options for both personal fundraising [13] and decreased cost for charitable organizations. [14] This may be done using a pre-determined amount or by letting visitors enter their own donation amount.

See also

Related Research Articles

Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement in which affiliates receive a commission for each visit, signup or sale they generate for a merchant. This arrangement allows businesses to outsource part of the sales process. It is a form of performance-based marketing where the commission acts as an incentive for the affiliate; this commission is usually a percentage of the price of the product being sold, but can also be a flat rate per referral.

Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advertisements are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google. They can generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. Google beta-tested a cost-per-action service, but discontinued it in October 2008 in favor of a DoubleClick offering. In Q1 2014, Google earned US$3.4 billion, or 22% of total revenue, through Google AdSense. In 2021, more than 38 million websites used AdSense. It is a participant in the AdChoices program, so AdSense ads typically include the triangle-shaped AdChoices icon. This program also operates on HTTP cookies.

Cost per impression (CPI) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) are terms used in traditional advertising media selection, as well as online advertising and marketing related to web traffic. They refer to the cost of traditional advertising or internet marketing or email advertising campaigns, where advertisers pay each time an ad is displayed. CPI is the cost or expense incurred for each potential customer who views the advertisement(s), while CPM refers to the cost or expense incurred for every thousand potential customers who view the advertisement(s). CPM is an initialism for cost per mille, with mille being Latin for thousand.

Click fraud is a type of fraud that occurs on the Internet in pay per click (PPC) online advertising. In this type of advertising, the owners of websites that post the ads are paid based on how many site visitors click on the ads. Fraud occurs when a person, automated script, computer program or an auto clicker imitates a legitimate user of a web browser, clicking on such an ad without having an actual interest in the target of the ad's link in order to increase revenue. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.

An online advertising network or ad network is a company that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements. The key function of an ad network is an aggregation of ad supply from publishers and matching it with the advertiser's demand. The phrase "ad network" by itself is media-neutral in the sense that there can be a "Television Ad Network" or a "Print Ad Network", but is increasingly used to mean "online ad network" as the effect of aggregation of publisher ad space and sale to advertisers is most commonly seen in the online space. The fundamental difference between traditional media ad networks and online ad networks is that online ad networks use a central ad server to deliver advertisements to consumers, which enables targeting, tracking and reporting of impressions in ways not possible with analog media alternatives.

Cost per action (CPA), also sometimes misconstrued in marketing environments as cost per acquisition, is an online advertising measurement and pricing model referring to a specified action, for example, a sale, click, or form submit.

Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising, and mobile advertising. Advertisements are increasingly being delivered via automated software systems operating across multiple websites, media services and platforms, known as programmatic advertising.

Cost per mille (CPM), also called cost per thousand (CPT), is a commonly-used measurement in advertising. It is the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of an advertisement. Radio, television, newspaper, magazine, out-of-home advertising, and online advertising can be purchased on the basis of exposing the ad to one thousand viewers or listeners. It is used in marketing as a benchmarking metric to calculate the relative cost of an advertising campaign or an ad message in a given medium.

Click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of clicks on a specific link to the number of times a page, email, or advertisement is shown. It is commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website, as well as the effectiveness of email campaigns.

In Internet marketing, search advertising is a method of placing online advertisements on web pages that show results from search engine queries. Through the same search-engine advertising services, ads can also be placed on Web pages with other published content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Targeted advertising</span> Form of advertising

Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting.

Behavioral retargeting is a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is targeted to consumers based on their previous internet behaviour. Retargeting tags online users by including a pixel within the target webpage or email, which sets a cookie in the user's browser. Once the cookie is set, the advertiser is able to show ads to that user elsewhere on the internet via an ad exchange.

Pay-per-sale or PPS is an online advertisement pricing system where the publisher or website owner is paid on the basis of the number of sales that are directly generated by an advertisement. It is a variant of the CPA model, where the advertiser pays the publisher and/or website owner in proportion to the number of actions committed by the readers or visitors to the website.

Performance Marketing, also known as pay for performance advertising, is a form of advertising in which the purchaser pays only when there are measurable results. Its objective is to drive a specific action, and advertisers only pay when that action, such as an acquisition or sale, is completed.

A view-through rate (VTR), measures the number of post-impression response or viewthrough from display media impressions viewed during and following an online advertising campaign. Such post-exposure behavior can be expressed in site visits, on-site events, conversions occurring at one or more Web sites or potentially offline:

In-image advertising is a form of contextual advertising where specific images on a website are matched with related advertisements.

In the online advertising industry, a viewable impression is a measure of whether a given advert was actually seen by a human being, as opposed to being out of view or served as the result of automated activity. The viewable impression guidelines are administered by the Media Rating Council and require that a minimum of 50% of the pixels in the advertisement were in an in-focus tab on the viewable space of the browser page for at least one continuous second.

Ad fraud is concerned with the practice of fraudulently representing online advertisement impressions, clicks, conversion or data events in order to generate revenue. Ad-frauds are particularly popular among cybercriminals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advertising revenue</span> Income from displaying online ads

Advertising revenue is the monetary income that individuals and businesses earn from displaying paid advertisements on their websites, social media channels, or other platforms surrounding their internet-based content. In September 2018, the U.S Internet advertising market was estimated to be worth $111 billion, with market share being held mostly between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. These companies earn revenue through online advertising but also have initiated pathways for individual users and social media influencers to earn an income. Individuals and businesses can earn advertising revenue through advertising networks such as Google AdSense, YouTube monetization, or Outbrain.

References

  1. ↑ "Cost Per Thousand - CPM". Investopedia. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
  2. ↑ AdBalance - Glossary
  3. ↑ HowStuffWorks "How Banner Ads Work"
  4. ↑ "Google AdSense Ad Formats" . Retrieved 2009-10-11.
  5. ↑ "AdSense Alternatives to Make Money From Your Blog". thetecnica. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  6. ↑ "Bing Ads Program". Microsoft. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
  7. ↑ Hercher, James (February 13, 2019). "Highland Math Forms First Data Co-op Of Data Sellers". AdExchanger.com. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
  8. ↑ Jarvis, Paul. "How to Drive Revenue Through Newsletters". Inc.com. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
  9. ↑ Cook, Tracy. "How much U.S. newspapers charge for digital subscriptions". American Press Institute. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
  10. ↑ DiMauro, Vanessa. "People Come For Content And Stay For Community". Leader Networks. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
  11. ↑ "Digital subscriptions". The New York Times. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
  12. ↑ Calabrese, Charlie. "Digital Subscription Services Are Hot: Here's How Partner Marketing Can Make Them Hotter". MarTech Advisor. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
  13. ↑ "Discounted transaction rates for 501(c)(3) charities". PayPal. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
  14. ↑ "Make your personal fundraising go further". PayPal. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
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