Save the Content, Save Your World
It’s hard out there for a publisher.
User loyalty, pageviews and time on site have all diminished, as your audience jumps around, chasing the next piece of “recommended” clickbait. And revenue models are threatened as ad blocking increases. The answer?
Make content pay you, not the other way around.
As MediaCom managing director, Steve Carbone, recently told Digiday: “Anything that causes users to engage more is good for the brand.”
That means attention-grabbing digital content with which users interact, including quizzes, videos, games, listicles, interactives, and more. Each type is a different tool for publishers to increase time on-site, drive new traffic, and build new monetization
Time on Site
This is important: engaging content keeps users glued to the publisher’s Web site.
Our studies show that, when AARP added on-brand games, they saw average time-on-site reach upwards of 15 minutes, with some content keeping users on site as high as 29 minutes. Think about that. Twenty-nine minutes. Likewise, videos, which account for 70% of all online activity, account for an average of 40 minutes of a user’s daily internet consumption. If they aren’t consuming those on your site, they are consuming elsewhere.
When users are retained, they discover and engage with more native content, share links (see ‘New Traffic’ below), and present additional opportunities to be served ads.
Learn how increased engagement means higher ad premiums.
New Traffic
Engaging content has share-ability that attracts users like no other.
According to Kissmetrics, users develop a personal relationship with engaging content and experience their wins, results, and overall responses as part of their identity, and something worth sharing. And quizzes are an excellent way to attract new users through social sharing: according to NewsWhip they regularly reach over 10,000,000 monthly Facebook shares and are some of the most socially shared content across the Web.
Now, new traffic is great. But retention and loyalty it is better, which are added benefits of engaging content. For example, according to our data, when the Los Angeles Times added a daily crossword to their collection of engaging content, they saw upwards of 27 million crossword pageviews, with 92% of those views attributed to returning visitors.
Monetization
Because engaging content has such high levels of completion rates, monetization naturally follows. According to our data, quizzes have a 93.33% completion rate despite having both pre-roll and mid-roll video advertisements. Plus a sprinkling of (refreshable) display ads.
A second benefit is the mix-matched demographics attracted to engaging content. For example, some content is intentionally geared toward older demographics, who are a perfect fit for publishers looking to beat the onslaught of ad blocking; studies by Source Point and ComScore show the usage of ad blocking technology decreases with age. A wide demographic spectrum attracted to and engaging with specific content also facilitates tailored, direct sell advertising opportunities.
Digital publishers still face many challenges. But harnessing free, engaging content is a solution that both serves many publishing KPIs and is immediately available to implement.
