While content may be king, smart publishers know it takes more than that to earn a living. Fortunately, the world of online publishing offers countless opportunities to monetize your high-quality content. From advertising and affiliate marketing to premium content and subscriptions, there’s never been a better time to harness the income-producing potential of your content.
Whether you’re just starting out or simply want to diversify your revenue stream, take the time to read 50 Ways to Make Media Pay. This new report, sponsored by Sovrn and produced by What’s New In Publishing, explores both common and unconventional tactics to help publishers maximize their earnings.
5 Ways to Make Advertising Work for You
Despite the variety of monetization options available today, advertising remains an incredibly important revenue generator for most publishers.
The imminent end of third-party cookies will create new challenges on both sides of the ad equation – but in the meantime, the global ad market continues to grow. Year-end findings from MAGNA show that global ad revenue reached a new high in 2021, growing 22 percent and project continued steady growth (+12 percent) in 2022.
Advertising comes in many shapes and sizes (literally!), so why not add a few of these ad tactics to your monetization efforts in the coming year:
- Display ads Also known as banner ads, display ads are the most traditional type of digital advertising. And while there have been tremendous innovations in the online advertising space over the years, there’s still considerable money to be made with display ad properties – especially when targeting technology is applied to contextual, interest-based, or remarketing ads.
- Native ads Native advertising is designed to blend seamlessly with the existing content of a website and create a less intrusive ad experience – for example, sponsored or paid content, advertorial articles, etc. While native advertising remains an important revenue source, it can create credibility problems for publishers if paid content isn’t clearly and consistently identified as such.
- Programmatic advertising In today’s online ecosystem, programmatic advertising is the preferred way for advertisers to find ad space that will reach their target audience – which means it’s also a great opportunity for publishers to drive revenue from their valuable ad properties. The global programmatic market has grown tremendously in recent years, with North America leading the way in programmatic ad spend.
- Recommendation engines Content recommendations from sites like Outbrain and Taboola are common across the web. This type of advertising can be financially attractive for both publishers and advertisers, as clicks typically generate revenue for both parties – and may include annual financial guarantees. Similar to native advertising, however, lack of transparency and overuse of these engines can compromise the user experience.
- Countering ad blockers Use of ad-blocking software may be slowing, but it can have severe revenue implications for publishers who rely on serving digital ads. In response, many publishers are encouraging users to whitelist their site or turn off ad blockers, by restricting access to content when an ad blocker is detected. Others are offering ad-lite or ad-free subscriptions to address this challenge.
Download the full report for more creative advertising ideas, plus dozens of other strategies to make media pay through subscriptions, paywalls, content-based strategies, and more.
And when it’s time to implement your advertising strategy, look no further than Sovrn Advertising. Our easy-to-use suite of advertising tools let you monetize your content in a snap, with header bidding, server-to-server bidding, waterfall advertising, and more.
And we’re making it easier than ever to optimize every ad placement by using “engaged time.” This innovative approach measures not only when an ad can be seen but also when a user is actively engaged with the content. With engaged time, you can accurately identify your most valuable ad inventory and price accordingly.
More Ways to Monetize with Sovrn
If you’re looking to try out some new monetization strategies, Sovrn can help! We made significant investments in new products and services throughout 2021, to help publishers diversify their revenue and maximize earnings.
- Commerce: With the addition of price and merchant comparison technology to our Commerce offering, you can now earn more revenue from every click. Diversify merchants, improve conversions, and boost revenue by building price comparison widgets into your existing commerce content.
- Data: We’re working to provide publishers with a standard and scalable way to transact their first-party data, as the first SSP to support IAB Tech Lab’s Seller Defined Audiences Specification in Prebid.org. We’re also helping publishers to increase the value of their proprietary data and create meaningful audience segments through data enrichment.
To learn more about these innovations – and all the other ways Sovrn supports publishers, email us at sales@sovrn.com and our team will be happy to help.
