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Video Strategy for Technology Websites

By Yoad Shloosh | October 3, 2019

Technology websites reach highly-educated, highly-affluent users. We discovered that visitors to tech websites have a median household income exceeding $80,000 and 26% higher than the median U.S. household income. 55% of them are male, but a growing number of women (45%) are now consuming the content as well.

This demographic is composed of industry leaders, decision-makers, and economic buyers. They are, on average, heavy tech consumers and heavy online/mobile users. They are avid readers, consumers of information, and watch significantly more video than the average consumer.

Competing in the Tech Publishing Space

Competing in the tech publishing space can be time-consuming and it can be expensive to develop high-caliber content that’s unique to the tastes of the audience. Cutting through the clutter in a crowded space takes serious work. Finding ways to differentiate your product in order to attract and retain this audience is crucial to success.

Being tech-savvy, visitors expect a perfect online experience with digital tools that work seamlessly. There’s little tolerance for low-quality products or performance.

This means that your website, mobile sites, and apps have to be operating at peak efficiency with great content that enhances your site’s SEO and demands engagement. Only then can you expect to realize any significant opportunities to monetize your website.

Differentiating Your Content

Information moves at light speed. We are in an age where basic facts and details are now a commodity.  

Every site wants to be the go-to site for industry news, but most traffic for tech sites originates from search engines or social network sites. This can account for as much as 95% of overall site traffic for major tech publishers. Unless you have unique content that will elicit direct traffic, you’re at the mercy of third-parties to drive volume.

Download the complete guide to video monetization

You need high-quality content that’s unique to your niche. It needs to be SEO-enhanced and fully optimized to attract attention from search engines and it needs to be snackable, shareable content that will engage people on social.

Producing this type of content consistently in video format can be expensive, but necessary, to attract and maintain user interest: 

This means offering robust video solutions to consumers, delivering unique and relevant content.

Digital Video Continues To Grow

Video makes up the majority of traffic on the internet. Already more than 80% of all IP traffic is video. To compete effectively, you’ve got to excel at video. Consumption will only rise as broadband speeds continue to increase; the rollout of 5G will increase speed more than 100X 4G. With more than 3 billion smartphones in use worldwide, video consumption is about to explode.

Video is also the largest gainer in advertising spending in the tech sector. For the first time in 2019, digital ad spending eclipsed television and any other media source accounting for 54% of total ad spend. Publishers that fully embrace video have the best chance to increase revenue.

Video Discovery Platforms

When it comes to video discovery platforms, it’s all about serving relevant content that increases engagement levels and commands higher rates. It’s important to choose a fully customizable video unit that integrates seamlessly into any website. Discoverability means that it surfaces contextually relevant and targeted content that leads to longer time on site.

According to Primis data, tech sites outperform almost any other kind of website. The Primis video discovery engine on tech sites outperforms other sites’ average duration times by 50%. Tech related sites see a viewable duration time nearly 240% higher than the network average viewable duration levels.

When it comes to monetization, video units on tech sites get higher rates. Tech-related sites with video units show a 32% higher CPM over other sites that have a similar unit.

Larger site publishers tend to have their own video content. Video discovery platforms can augment publisher video by recommending the right video to each user, keeping users engaged on-site while increasing monetization. Smaller publishers that have less video (or no video assets) can open up new revenue streams by using syndicated video content, or outsourcing their video creation.

The Bottom Line

Tech users are heavy video consumers. They represent a desirable audience for advertisers. Targeting the right content to each user creates significant monetization opportunities. Contact Primis to learn how optimizing your video can increase your revenue today.

 

By Yoad Shloosh | October 3, 2019

Video Content: Outsource or Keep It In-House?

By Simcha Weil | September 24, 2019

As a digital publisher, It’s easy to answer the question of adding video to your content offering (YES!), it’s much harder to understand what is the best way to do it. Video production is one of those tasks where it can be tough to decide whether to do it alone or bring in the experts. The fact that there are new, innovative and low-budget video creation tools, further complicates the matter. There’s no simple answer, but let’s break down the factors that could influence your decision and try helping make the right one for you.

The Bottom Line

While the precise figures will vary from market to market and with the type of video content you want, it almost always comes down to quantity. If you’re looking at a continuous schedule of regular content, outsourcing will likely work out more expensive on a per-video basis. Bear in mind professional producers often have a high base rate, so the length of the video has less effect on the price than you might think.

Download the complete guide to video monetization

While you’re still establishing and growing your website, in-house can be far more expensive simply because the up-front costs are so high. Not only do you need expensive equipment and software to produce quality videos but you’ll need to recruit specialist staff: learning on the job isn’t always an option given the high expectations of today’s audiences. As always, you’ll need to factor in recruitment costs and other HR expenses such as employee benefits.

Direct Approach vs. Fresh Perspective

One drawback of outsourcing is that you’re adding an extra layer between yourself and your audience, which can dilute the benefits of having built up an insight and understanding of who’s watching your content. On the other hand, outsourcing can bring a fresh perspective. That can be particularly useful when thinking about what might attract and engage new viewers.

Flexibility vs. Waste

Setting up an in-house video operation brings greater flexibility. If you’ve got an idea for some content, for example capitalizing on the latest meme or trend, you can get creating straight away. You can also pull the plug if something isn’t working. When outsourcing you can’t guarantee the most skilled producers will be available on short notice, while changing or abandoning a project midway through becomes expensive.

With in-house, however, there’s a risk of getting caught up in a “use it or lose it” approach where you create content just for the sake of keeping staff busy and using your equipment, with quantity replacing quality. There’s also a danger that having staff on the payroll means you don’t pay enough attention to the specific cost and return of individual video projects.

Creativity and Cliches

External production companies may fall into a rut of producing similar content regardless of the client, but in-house staff can just as easily try to copy the approach they’ve seen elsewhere. An outsourced producer might be more creative, but sometimes that takes priority over the actual goals of your video.

Twin-Track Approach

While both in-house and outsourcing have their pros and cons, most companies don’t need to make a binary choice. A common approach is to stay in-house for short, punchy, informal content such as social media clips that are designed to be casual and approachable, for example to attract people to your website in the first place. You can then outsource for more professional and detailed videos designed to retain viewers and increase the time they spend on your website. One of the most important things to include in this process is developing your own unique voice, which will help you stand out through all the clutter. 

Whether you produce your own video content and want help monetizing and promoting it, or you are looking to outsource production, Primis can help. Contact us today to find out how we, together, can make the most of your video.

By Simcha Weil | September 24, 2019

Video Monetization: How to Optimize Your Video Revenue

By Jacob Simkovich | September 12, 2019

Video has become almost a requirement for websites across the internet. In fact, the majority of online traffic is video and that number continues to grow. With widespread adoption of video, comes the opportunity to turn this tool for enhanced user experience into an additional revenue stream in the form of video monetization. 

We gathered insights from Primis experts across many disciplines, including content, demand, UX, revenue and video production and put them together to create our complete guide to video monetization.

In a constantly changing monetization and publishing landscape you must always keep updated with the latest technological innovations to get the most out of your digital assets

Rinat Avrina

Customer Success Executive at Primis

In this white paper, our experts discuss:

  • How video enhances user experience
  • The five rules for engaging users with video
  • Driving video monetization
  • Why context is so important for engagement
  • What viewability means for revenue
  • And much more


Download the complete guide to video monetization
 

In addition, we took a deep dive into our data, collected from 37,000,000 impressions from 21,000,000 of users watching 800,000 hours of our video content. 

From this data we were able to provide actionable insights that will enable websites to make the most of their videos and maximize revenue from this new ad inventory.

Increase size of video player for higher CPM

If you’re interested in learning more about how to best monetize your video inventory, then download our comprehensive guide here.

 

By Jacob Simkovich | September 12, 2019

What Every Publisher Needs to Know About Brand Safety

By Anat Schiff | September 9, 2019

When a publisher monetizes his site using advertising, he needs to some extent understand the entire pathway of advertising technology as well. Advertising on a site involves so many different interconnected factors that it can be hard to keep up. Brand safety is an important element to understand, as it affects performance which in turn can impact the resulting revenue.

Brand Safety is Also a Publisher Issue 

The more technological digital advertising became, and more profitable, the more there became a need for safety precautions against the growing sophistication of ad-fraud. This brought rise to several brand-safety initiatives and vendors catering to the many ad tech companies in the industry. Their influence on online advertising, including on the way SSPs and DSPs decide whether or not to advertise on a given site, has grown dramatically. 

These days, all major SSPs and DSPs are using at least one, if not several brand safety vendors. Based on the vendor’s reporting, they decide whether or not to advertise on the ad inventory they receive. That has an immediate impact on ad revenue, which is why it is crucial that publishers take a bigger interest in their brand safety rankings.

As most publishers don’t work directly with brand safety vendors, they are usually not aware of any brand safety situation they might have. They might not even know that the concept of brand safety exists. For that reason, we gathered the 6 ideas and actions that every publisher needs in order to improve their brand safety performance:

  1. Demand Partner Vendors – Find out which brand safety provider your demand partners are using. SSPs and DSPs are using several brand safety vendors and decide whether or not to publish on a specific site based on their results. 
  2. Know Your Ranking – Get to know your brand safety rank on the various brand safety platforms. Demand performance can be impacted by brand safe rank, resulting in lower bids and fill rates.
  3. Understand Your Metrics – Find out which metrics you are lacking. The vendors measure different metrics using different algorithms. While one partner may approve the traffic, another can block it altogether.
  4. Constant Feedback – Make sure to ask your demand partners for any feedback regarding the quality of traffic they are seeing. The publisher may be exposed to potential complaints and chargebacks from his associates due to the results they are seeing with the vendors they are using.
  5. Learn More –  Understand the different metrics meanings. Publishers should know the meaning of the IVT reasons of the different vendors to have an easy and fast fix in case of a problem.  
  6. Get Your Own – Work directly with a brand safety vendor. It can be very helpful as the publisher has direct access to the information and can work together with his AM in case of an issue, without involving middle men.

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Download the publisher's guide to privacy in 2020

Becoming knowledgeable about every aspect of your business is always a good idea. But for such an integral part of the advertising chain it becomes even more important. The fact that there are so many different vendors and metrics, and each one of them can have an impact on your revenue, does add to the complexity. However, ignoring the issue, and not taking control of your brand safety standing is simply not an option. Stay safe!

 

By Anat Schiff | September 9, 2019

What is The Coalition of Better Ads Initiative?

By Lotem Karmon | September 9, 2019

In 2016, 16 companies including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and trade groups like the Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Association of Advertising Agencies and IAB Europe formed what’s known as the Coalition for Better Ads.

Their objective? They want to set proper standards for ads that are geared towards user-friendliness, with the goal of providing a better user experience for internet consumers when they interact with ads.

Why is the Coalition of Better Ads Initiative Needed?

Consumers have pegged ads as intrusive and disruptive when they’re surfing the web. As a result, the use of ad blockers, both third-party and browser-based, is ubiquitous in the marketplace.

The coalition aims to shift consumer sentiment by providing high-quality standards for publishers to adhere to. Since its inception, there has been extensive research done between internet user behavior and online advertising. With the amount of data available from the larger companies in the coalition, they’ve been able to find some key insights to improving user experience and ad performance.

Using higher quality ads that users actually enjoy and engage with, brands, companies, and publishers will thrive in the long run by having ads contribute to, rather than hinder, the user experience.

Which Ads are Approved?

When it comes to the standards the coalition has set out, the main goal is to create an ideal user-friendly experience and content environment. Focusing on the user will lead to more ad clicks and ultimately to more buyers, revenue, and ROI.

In a general sense, any ad format that tries to “disrupt” the user-experience might not meet the standards of the coalition. The coalition’s website contains preferred ad formats like long, skinny ads on the right-hand side, and less desirable ad experiences, which include mobile pop-ups and auto-sound video ads on desktop. 

Download the complete guide to video monetization

Many of the requirements revolve around the advertisements being served seamlessly and planned for with consideration to the user experience. It may be worth it for publishers to revisit their current ad placements amongst their websites and consider the recommendations backed by the coalition.

The Impact, and What’s Next

The main impact the coalition has had is through its adoption by Google Chrome That means a publisher using unapproved ad units will be warned, and if they do not fix the violation within 30 days, Chrome will block all their ads. On a positive note, the standards that the coalition proposes can help inform campaign planning for advertisers and allow publishers to provide a better experience for their audiences.

With more research and time, the standards will continuously change based on the research on user behavior. It’s important to stay up to date with the coalition’s recommendations. The best way to keep up is to keep tabs on any changes or announcements they make via email or on their website.

The Better Ads Coalition has launched the “Better Ads Experience” program for publishers who aim to comply with the Better Ads Standards. In the future, this program could be a key signifier for media buyers to identify sites with high-quality traffic and engagement.

By Lotem Karmon | September 9, 2019

It’s Time for Brand Safety Vendors to Standardize

By Anat Schiff | September 9, 2019

Brand safety is, according to the International Advertising Bureau, the practice of making sure brands are safe when advertising online. It helps to keep brands from showing up next to any illegal or inappropriate content, like adult content, fake news, or anything else a brand wouldn’t want to be associated with. Moreover, brand safety is used broadly to refer to any practice that compromises the digital advertising activity within the advertising chain, most specifically fraudulent activity. 

Brand safety has been discussed more than ever over the past few years. Advertisers and media buyers are calling for a greater degree of transparency when it comes to where their ads are being shown.

This year, $5.8bn is expected to be wasted due to ad fraud, and lack of transparency from brand safety vendors is somewhat frustrating for publishers.

Download the publisher's guide to privacy in 2020

Ad tech vendors and SSPs need to be especially vigilant to ensure that the inventory they provide is of a high-quality standard. However, there is a need for standardization across multiple vendors and platforms, due to the differences in how brand safety vendors define the various metrics on their platforms.

Why We Need Standardization for Brand Safety

As the media buying process and programmatic advertising become more and more complex, the layering of technologies is making it difficult to achieve alignment among brands or implement standardization protocols. 

One key problem is that, due to the myriad of options out there, vendors categorize the various threats to brand safety differently. These categorizations include adult content, gambling, bots, data center traffic, SIVT, and many others. Each vendor has different standards for each of the violations, as well as different algorithms and measurements to determine the fraudulent traffic. They also identify them with different names, further complicating matters. With these differences in measurement and standards for each vendor, come the inherent complexity which begs for standardization.

Ideally, standardization would allow for clearer KPIs for clean and safe traffic across the board. However, with the layering of technologies and the use of multiple vendors, it has become very difficult.

Coming together

While it’s important that one uses trustworthy brand safety vendors, especially those with accreditation from organizations like the Media Rating Council(MRC), most ad tech vendors need to work with two or three brand safety vendors, because all of their demand-side or supply-side partners will be using multiple as well. This has become necessary for partnerships to work. If two partners are using different brand safety vendors which reflect different statistics and insights, it may cause an irreconcilable strain on their partnership.

The absence of standardization among accredited brand safety vendors raises problems particularly regarding invalid traffic (IVT). Along the entire supply chain, traffic can be flagged as fraudulent or invalid due to the different metrics that vendors use, from both SSP’s and DSP’s. 

The lack of transparency for how metrics are calculated makes it difficult for companies along the chain to strategize and plan for IVT, as no two companies measure it the same. This discrepancy can account for millions of wasted dollars a year on false alarms. 

Where Do We Go From Here?

Everyone in the ad tech ecosystem, from the publisher to the buyer to the advertiser, has a role to play in the push for the standardization of brand safety. No one part of the chain is to blame, but all can benefit from uniting under a common brand safety language.

Download the complete guide to video monetization

This isn’t a problem that can be solved in a year… or even two. And it’s through no fault of any party involved. It’s genuinely hard to map out a single solution for successfully unifying brand safety metrics and standards. For one, getting multiple companies to agree on and adopt the same methods will be a long and arduous undertaking. However, embracing the opportunity for dialogue and communication between SSP’s, DSP’s and brand safety vendors is the first step towards brand safety transparency and unification.

By Anat Schiff | September 9, 2019

RTB in Light of GDPR

By Dan Sharon | September 9, 2019

GDPR could make real-time bidding unworkable if arguments made by privacy advocates hold up. There’s no questioning that GDPR has an impact, but the big debate right now is whether it’s possible to tweak RTB to meet the rules, or if it’s fundamentally incompatible.

What’s the Problem?

While GDPR covers a range of rights for citizens and responsibilities for data handlers, the main point of contention for RTB is consent. Unlike some other data regulations, companies affected by GDPR must gain meaningful consent before collecting personal data. Implied consent is no longer sufficient. 

Prior consent is also needed for changing the way companies handle data, such as passing it on to third parties. That raised the issue of whether it’s technically viable to do this in the context of real-time bidding.

We Can Work It Out

IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework is designed to address a range of GDPR issues and its CEO Townsend Feehan told AdExchanger that a solution is possible. He thinks there’s a way to do so without breaching consent rules, though he hasn’t detailed exactly how that would work.

One suggestion floating around is to have bidding on a “bucket” of users rather than an individual, thus avoiding the classification of personal data. The big problem there is that to be attractive to bidders, the “bucket” needs to be made up of people with common defined characteristics. That leaves very little wiggle room before simply being included in a bucket would reveal enough about an individual to constitute personal data.

RTB Fighting A Losing Battle

The other side of the argument is that trying to thread the needle to make RTB work with consent rules is a flawed premise because the real challenge comes with the data protection. GDPR includes several principles such as collecting the minimum data necessary for the defined task, keeping it secure, and data controllers having responsibility for the way third-party processors handle the data.

The debate here is whether it’s even possible to meet the specific wording of the rules while still using RTB, or whether the practice is inherently unsuited to the intended purpose of GDPR.

The GDPR Waiting Game

As with most large-scale regulation, particularly in the tech sector, it’s not just the wording of GDPR that matters, but the enforcement and interpretation. That’s why it may take time and a few test cases before we really know if RTB can continue to work within GDPR’s confines.

It could also be an inconsistent picture. Unlike the more common directives that EU member states must enable through domestic law, GDPR is an EU regulation that automatically has legal effect across the member states. That doesn’t necessarily mean every country’s data regulators will enforce it in exactly the same way. For example, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has already labelled RTB as intrusive and unfair, suggesting it will take a hardline approach to interpreting GDPR.

It could be a matter of years before a clear picture emerges, but at the very least any companies using RTB in Europe need to be thinking carefully about their options. There’s no immediate threat to RTB as a technology, but it’s not out of the question that complying with GDPR could limit its effectiveness. Whether that still leaves it as the best tool for the job remains to be seen.

Download the complete guide to video monetization

By Dan Sharon | September 9, 2019

How to Monetize a Website: 8 Monetization Strategies for Digital Publishers

By Jacob Simkovich | July 29, 2019

As a publisher, deciding how to monetize a website may feel overwhelming. Here’s an overview of eight proven monetization methods and the right publisher fit for each one.

8 Ways to Monetize Your Website

Each of the below monetization models is dependent on what kind of website you’re running. Some models may not be the best fit for your website. It’s important that you determine which model will work best for you. You can do this using both quantitative and qualitative methods, whether it’s looking at your website analytics to understand your readership, or throwing out a survey and seeing what your website visitors have to say. 

Video Ad Units

In my totally unbiased opinion, the best way to monetize your website is with video, the medium that brings in high engagement rates and revenues when done right.

In 2018, video advertising accounted for 25% of all digital advertising spend, and for good reason. Video advertising has a much better ROI for advertisers when compared to display, which is exactly why they will pay higher CPMs for quality video ad inventory. 

The process is similar to display ad units where you offer a specific space of inventory. Premiums are put on things like location, video player size, and whether the advertisement plays before, during or after the actual video.

Video ad units are an ideal monetization model for publishers who use advertising as a main method of website monetization. If you have high engagement and time-on-site because of your content, incorporating video will be especially lucrative for your website. Now more than ever, any content website can create quality in-stream ad inventory, and monetize it easily right from the start.  

If you’re currently incorporating video into your website or want to introduce it in order to create new ad inventory, then monetizing your video using a video discovery platform can be an excellent source of website revenue. If you’re interested in giving video discovery a try, you can discuss it with a Primis representative.

Display Ad Units

Monetizing your website using display ad units requires offering ad space in specific locations on your website. The typical spaces most publishers offer are at the top, on the side, or on the bottom of the web page. Depending on the layout of your website, you can also choose to offer various ad sizes, with some of the most common sizes being 300×250 and 728×90.

Download the complete guide to video monetization

This method is used by most publishers who offer content to their users, and it is still the digital advertising method that attracts the most investment. The advantages are that there is a seemingly endless supply of options, that publishers can fit multiple units on most pages, and that they come in a variety of different sizes. 

Programmatic Advertising

Back in the day, if you wanted to offer your advertising space as inventory for advertisers, you’d have to do so relatively manually. You would receive the code needed for your website, or even the creative itself, over e-mail and install it manually on your website.

Today, the entire buying and selling process is automated through a process called programmatic advertising, which helps you find the best price for your inventory. While going through programmatic advertising in depth is beyond the scope of this article, what you need to know is that the process has become much simpler.

Monetizing display or video ad units requires you to register with what’s called a Supply Side Platform, or SSP. These platforms then help you find the right type of advertisements based on any number of criteria and give you the best price for your inventory.

Programmatic advertising is ideal for websites that have a large amount of traffic every month. The advantage for publishers is that, with programmatic handling everything, it’s a relatively low maintenance source of revenue as opposed to direct sales of display ads. You will see the most benefit if you are diligent in optimizing for the best results, and cutting off partners who consistently aren’t delivering. 

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing allows publishers to recommend products and services. Through a unique affiliate link that’s published on your website, you’ll be able to receive a commission if your website visitors end up visiting the partner site and purchasing.

An example of this would be Amazon’s affiliate program, where through your affiliate link you’ll be able to send people to products and services on Amazon and you’ll receive a commission if they decide to make a purchase there.

With countless brands participating in affiliate programs and networks, affiliate marketing is an ideal monetization model for many publishers. For example, if you have a passionate audience tailored around a topic or hobby, there are bound to be niche brands who would love to work with you. The advantage for publishers with affiliate marketing is that, like display and video units, it’s also relatively low maintenance compared to other models. 

When it comes to monetizing through affiliate marketing, it’s important that you don’t just pick the affiliate program that offers the highest commission. You want to ensure the products and services you promote are consistent with your brand and resonate and appeal to your audience.

Subscription Models

Subscription models consist of offering your visitors a paid monthly or yearly subscription which can include membership sites, access to exclusive, high-quality content. There are many newspapers that employ this model, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Huffington Post, and many others. 

The most difficult thing when it comes to subscription models for a website is continuously offering enough value that justifies the subscription prices.

Subscription models are ideal for publishers of websites that can justify charging regular fees for unique content. For example, if your industry is rapidly changing, such as news or technology, it may be worth exploring. The advantage to subscription models is a predictable source of revenue every month, the opportunity for higher growth and profits, and complete autonomy over the entire revenue model.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content lets brands create educational or inspirational content for your  website. This mainly comes in the form of articles or blog posts. In order to entice brands who are willing to pay for sponsored content, your site traffic, readership engagement and your demographic need to be crystal clear. A media kit specifically showing these metrics can provide brands with the needed information to make an informed decision.

Sponsored content is ideal for publishers who know their audience and understand what brands they are attracted to. If you are a high-end luxury website in a certain industry, you can contact other, adjacent brands to create sponsored content for you. It requires publishers to work closely with the brands. The advantage of sponsored content is that it is seen as more trustworthy than traditional ads. 

E-Commerce

Depending on the type of website you are running, e-commerce can be an excellent opportunity for monetization. An example of a content site using e-commerce would be BuzzFeed’s food site Tasty selling their own cookware.

E-commerce is usually seen as the “next step” after affiliate marketing, as it allows you to receive higher profits by selling your own products. E-commerce has its drawbacks, however, with inventory management being the main concern.

There are 3rd party companies and suppliers out there that private label different kinds of products and handle inventory and shipping, so it can be worth looking into.

E-commerce is ideal for publishers where there are complementary products that one can offer. In Tasty’s example, the branded cookware meshes well with the various cooking videos and how-to articles they provide. 

Building an Email List

One of the most valuable things you can do as a publisher is to build your email list. Unlike most of the models on this list, building an email list is proprietary. The best part of monetizing through an email list is the amount of experimentation you can do in testing out different website monetization models, giving you the freedom to monetize the list as you see fit and finding the best one for you and your audience.

One example of monetizing your email list is creating a weekly newsletter full of interesting, relevant content created by your team or curated from across the internet, then adding an opportunity for advertisements in the form of banner ads or sponsored content at the bottom from a relevant brand.

Building an email list is worthwhile for every publisher and should be an essential part to your marketing mix. However, monetizing that list may be more appropriate for some publishers than others. Companies that utilize newsletters and share content regularly can use sponsored content on their newsletter and can also incorporate it into a multi-tiered subscription model.

The (Real) Key to Website Monetization

Monetizing using the above models requires a delicate balance between maximizing the ROI of your website and not alienating your readers. It’s important to keep a pulse on how your readership/audience/visitors are responding to the website monetization models you’re testing and act based on that information.

Undoubtedly, you should monetize your website as effectively as possible, but never sacrifice user experience.

Download the complete guide to video monetization

 

By Jacob Simkovich | July 29, 2019

Why Video is GOOD for Your User Experience

By Toar Mekaiten | July 25, 2019

Video has become really important to users, to the point where they are now expecting it everywhere. With the recent advances in internet technology and infrastructure, these visitors are expecting a seamless digital user experience… and hiccups in performance are simply no longer tolerated. 

That is why it’s no surprise that many publishers worry about giving their users a good experience, especially due to the widespread perception that video may be harmful to website UX.

Video and Your Publishing Strategy

Publishers aren’t just integrating more videos into their content mix because it’s expected of them. Here are a few other reasons why video is so crucial to your publishing strategy:

Ok, so now you’re convinced that video is important, but if video creates a bad user experience then it’s better not to make the investment. On the contrary, when done right, video not only improves user experience, it can actually enhance the user’s journey and increase their time on your site. 

Key Video Elements for Improving UX

Here are the major factors to consider when utilizing video to enhance your UX:

Sound Advice

Don’t surprise your users with audio content then depend on them to figure out how to mute it if they don’t want to listen. Auto-mute should be the default setting, and volume should not be allowed unless the user makes a deliberate decision to listen to a video. If you are successful in matching the right video to the right user, then they may decide that they would like to listen as well.

Download the complete guide to video monetization

A Strong Start

Capture user attention from the start. The first few seconds determine whether the user will engage with your video content. So, start strong and make sure to be interesting from the very beginning. Remember, users’ attention spans are not to be taken for granted.

Keep It Short

Short videos (up to 2 minutes) get the most significant engagement, so there is no time to waste. Make your message accurate and to the point.

Average engagement vs. Video Length
https://www.vidioh.co.uk/what-is-the-optimal-video-length/

Give Users Control

Now that your users are watching your video, make sure that they have full control over interacting with the player. They should be able to intuitively discover all of the features of the unit, from volume, to fullscreen, to recommended content or even sharing on social media.

Remember, interaction can not just improve the user experience, it also means that there are more possibilities for video monetization.

Ease and Accessibility

Add a written title and description and closed captions to let the user decide how to consume the information. Another feature that improves accessibility is the collapsing player, which lets the user follow the video while scrolling between pages.

The Future of Video in User Experience

In the fast-paced technological landscape in which we work, it’s important to keep up to date with the latest trends in website design, UX and other features improving video playing on websites. 

However, as we’ve seen above, there is no substitute for putting yourself in the user’s shoes and delivering to them what they want. Respect your users, deliver them content that they are looking for, and give them control over their experience. Then you’ll be sure to reap the rewards of engagement and monetization that make video such a lucrative medium.   

By Toar Mekaiten | July 25, 2019

How to Increase Video Viewability… and Why It’s So Important

By Lotem Karmon | July 22, 2019

When a tree falls in the woods, and nobody hears it, does it make any sound? If a video ad is displayed and nobody watches it, was an ad played? Ad viewability has been discussed since the start of online advertising, but has only become widely discussed over the past few years. The popularity and importance of the subject goes hand in hand with the maturing of the digital ad landscape.

For publishers interested in video, ensuring quality placement and content means that advertisers are more likely to reach their KPIs, which ultimately leads to higher revenue. So, the equation is simple. Better viewability equals higher revenue. In fact, according to Primis research, a 20% increase in viewability could increase CPM of the unit by up to 25%. 

Viewability Definitions and Benchmarks

When it comes to video viewability, it can be difficult to strike the right balance between making more money and optimizing user experience. Regarding video, by paying close attention to viewability, you can achieve one without hurting the other. 

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First, let’s dig into the most important terms, which have had different iterations over the years, resulting in the one provided by today’s standard in the industry, the joint MRC and IAB guidelines:

  • Display Viewability– at least 50% of its pixels must be in view for at least one second
  • Video Viewability– at least 50% of the player pixels must be in view for at least two seconds

The industry is still learning to adapt to this critical metric. According to research, today’s mobile-web video ad viewability is standing at only 66% in the US. 

Advertisers look to have a positive impact on the user and achieve other KPIs besides video ad viewability. Therefore, advertisers are also putting a lot of focus on the VTR (View Through Rate) to understand how much of the ad has been watched and how many of them have been completed.  

Now that we have a good grasp of what viewability is and its importance to advertisers, here are the top 3 things to consider to get your video viewability rates up, and thereby increase your revenue.

How to Increase Video Viewability

First and foremost, understand your users. Learn to know how they behave on your specific site. Focus on which pages and sections they are staying longer and, more specifically, which part on the page is attracting the most engagement. 

After you have studied your user base, consider the following tips in order to increase your video viewability.

How Content Affects Viewability

While you are in the mind of your audience, think about what kind of content they might find interesting. If you have an idea for a video, think about whether your target persona would be happy to watch it. If the answer is yes, then go ahead and use it.

 

Showing each user the right content is crucial. No one knows your users better than you, the publisher. An unhappy or simply unengaged user is a problem, so concentrate on what they are meant to see. That doesn’t just mean the quality of the video, but also the right video content to the right user.

Showing relevant and engaging content will automatically increase your video ad viewability.

Video Placement on Page

Finding the best placement on the page for a video unit can be tricky. Whether to place it above-the-fold, below-the-fold or inside the content page and whether it should be the same for both Desktop and Mobile are case by case decisions. There’s no definitive answer for this, and you should always continue testing different positions on the page and different features until you find the optimal placement. Keep in mind, you will most probably need to run different video designs and formats on different sections of your site.

The most important aspects to consider for video placement optimization are Player Size and Viewability Duration.

  • Size Does Matter – As you keep enlarging the size of the video unit, advertisers will simply be happy to bid higher CPMs on the inventory. According to our research, increasing a player’s size improves the viewability rate by approximately 15%, which can lead to an estimated 25% increase in CPM. 
  • Viewability Duration – In order to create enough viewable ad opportunities and to keep a high VTR of the ad impressions you should make sure that the unit is viewable and in front of the user for as long as possible.

As of now, the most common method for increasing viewability duration is the collapsing player. When the user scrolls down, the unit sticks with him and follows all the way down the page. Even YouTube has recently added this feature to both their site and app.

Technology for Video Viewability

Using the right technology is key to keeping a quality viewability rate. Choosing the right video provider and supporting the most updated technology is essential. The right video provider will be able to identify when the user is there and if the user is actually in-front or in-view of the player.  

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So, no need to use lazy loading. A player with a quick loading time should directly impact the performance, not only of your video monetization, but across all ad units on the page, including display. Also, having a responsive player is important for being able to fit the video natively whether it’s only mobile or desktop.

Taking Video Viewability to the Next Level

Now that you know what viewability is, why it’s so important for your website and how you can make it work for you, it’s time to start putting it into action. Before you consider all of the tips and advice listed above, don’t lose sight of the most important goal, keeping user experience as the top priority. No trick or gimmick, no matter how effective in the short term, can replace the long lasting impact of providing great, relevant content to your site’s visitors.

By Lotem Karmon | July 22, 2019
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