When it comes to mobile, there appears good news and bad news for publishers. The good news is audiences are consuming lots of their content on mobile devices. The bad news: publishers are making far less money on them.
Take the publisher Cheezburger, home of Internet time-wasting stalwarts like I Can Has Cheezburger and Failblog. It only released its first trio of mobile apps in the fall and already sees 300,000 daily users via the iOS apps. That compares to about 2 million on the desktop Web. These users are staying around longer and visiting more regularly, too. According to Cheezburger’s internal projections, it will see fully one-third of its traffic shift to mobile by the middle of the year. Terrific news!
The fly in the ointment: Cheezburger makes less per user, far less. In fact, chief revenue officer Todd Sawicki estimates the mobile visitor is currently worth only a quarter what the desktop Web visitor is. The reason: the mobile ad network is very immature. Cheezburger is monetizing entirely through third-party ad networks like Apple’s iAd and Millennial Media. It currently runs a small banner at the bottom of the screen, then inserts a full-screen ad every fourth photo mobile users view. It plans to use only the 350 x 250 pixels full-screen ad in the future.
“We purposely under-invested in mobile,” Sawicki said. “We realized enough users had shifted that it was the right thing to do.”
This is a persistent problem for publishers that are seeing their audiences go mobile. Pandora, for instance, sees most of its use in mobile and yet generates most of its ad revenue still through desktop ads. There’s the scary prospect that publishers will see even further ad rate declines if mobile ads aren’t thought of as being as effective as larger desktop placements.
Like other publishers, Cheezburger is betting that mobile ad rates increase as the the audience migrates. Sawicki also hopeful that subscriptions succeed in mobile where they mostly failed online. But for now, it’s a fair bit of faith.
“Let’s grow it and then see what happens,” he said.
-
In graphic detail: Publishers’ full year 2022 earnings
Looking back at 2022, the hits to publishers' revenue were partially staunched, but by the end of the year nearly all areas of the business felt the impact of the economic downturn.
-
‘It has to be built in’: How agencies strive to advance their diversity goals
There often is no blueprint for diversity in the corporate world, and many initiatives at media agencies have been works in progress over the last few years.
-
Publishers tout generative AI opportunities to save and make money amid rough media market
Generative AI technology will be an area of focus for some media companies this year as they work to cut costs and find new revenue opportunities amid a tough media market.
-
SponsoredBrands are optimizing video production to drive user acquisition
Sponsored by QuickFrame by MNTN With brands increasingly investing in video ads on social media, marketers are enhancing their video production capabilities to unlock growth on Facebook and Instagram. Especially urgent in an uncertain economic climate, brands must minimize production costs while creating a high enough volume of social media videos to identify the creative […]
-
Digiday+ Research: Video ads are a growing business for publishers large and small
Video advertising's potential rings most true among small publishers, while data points to video advertising already reaching its potential among large publishers — but also not, at the same time.
-
How The Guardian’s Luis Romero is selling the legacy U.K. publication in the U.S.
The Guardian U.S.'s Luis Romero is working to grow the U.K.-based publishers' ad business in North America while combating the pervasive brand safety problem facing all news publishers.
