Are Publishers Happy with Website Monetization?
Publishers may need someone to lean on for website monetization, based on January 2015 polling by Adaptive Media. Among US digital publishers polled, more than one-quarter weren’t happy with the revenues they were generating from their sites.
Responses indicated that website monetization was generally harder than expected. Fully 42% of respondents said generating revenues from their site or blog had been slower and harder, vs. just 32% who said it had been faster and easier. Just over a quarter (26%) said it had been about what they expected.
Having someone focused on driving website revenues could help improve results. However, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they didn’t have anyone helping them manage and optimize the performance of their site monetization tools and ad zones.
Beyond leveraging human skills, implementing new ad formats can also help publishers drive more site revenues. Native advertising is one option, and there’s certainly appetite among buyers. According to Q4 2014 research by the Association of National Advertisers, 85% of US client-side marketers had run native advertising on digital publishing sites over the past year.
However, a small group of publishers is seeing most of that action, as few offer native advertising. October 2014 research by Cxense found that nearly two-thirds of US publishing executives didn’t run native ads on their sites, and less than one-quarter in this group intended to introduce such placements in the next 12 months.
Even for those running campaigns, measurement remains an issue. Cxense found that nearly six in publishing execs who currently sold native ads on their sites weren’t able to determine whether or not results were good—limiting their ability to provide potential buyers with metrics and improve their strategy.
You can read the full article in eMarketer here.