“It shouldn’t be called a smartphone. It should really be called a “smart-inbox.”
- Dave Hendricks, President of LiveIntent

With a little calculation of the time you spend on your smartphone, you can probably see where he’s coming from. How much time do you spend per day on your smartphone making phone calls? Okay, now how much time do you spend on your smartphone checking your email? Hmmm…. If you’re like 91% of smartphone users, you check email at least once a day - and probably more.

Written for Publishing Executive by Elie Ashery, Gold Lasso CEO 

Melody Kramer’s recent piece, “When newsrooms don’t own their data, other companies profit” on Poynter should be a hard and fast wake-up call for publishers. Kramer, a former digital strategist at NPR and former visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, offers several insights from publishers about how newsrooms collect then give away data programmatically without fair compensation. Most of the examples she provides are related to behavioral data, however “data fleecing” publishers stretches way beyond link tracking and location check-ins.

As published in MediaPost

Email newsletter monetization

When publishers think about email newsletter monetization, the first things that come to mind are usually list rentals, sponsorships, and display ads. While these typical pre-click monetization tactics work well, they often have inherent risks such as subscriber disengagement, list attrition and deliverability issues.

What if there was a more elegant way to monetize email? While most publishers focus on the real estate inside an email for monetization opportunities, they often overlook the most valuable parcels containing complete subscriber attention: the post-click.

Email post-click monetization

Every experienced publisher knows that the actual value of email is not in the opens, but in the clicks. The open statistic is just a prelude to the end goal of focusing a subscriber's attention to valuable content and revenue-producing advertising. Knowing this, nothing is more attention-grabbing than the anticipation of what's on the other side of a click. A quick shot of dopamine commits the subscriber to focus intently on what will happen next. This prime email real estate, the process of going from email to website, the post-click, is what gets squandered the most when publishers monetize email.

Thankfully, there are now targeting methods allowing publishers to monetize this neglected post-click real estate efficiently, without sacrificing list attrition or subscriber engagement. One recent email monetization study by Gold Lasso concluded that most pre-click tactics provide a 2 to 7 times increase in subscriber attrition or disengagement, while post-click tactics have no effect.

Ironically, many of these post-click methods are the same as pre-click (inside the email) but are repurposed for the post-click opportunity. The most prevalent example is leveraging an email address's MD5# or encrypted version. Aside from email marketing, the email address is now serving a multitude of purposes such as creating custom audiences on social networks and providing new revenue opportunities for publishers. Many ad networks now allow publishers to submit an email address's MD5# (instead of a cookie) to return a dynamically created personalized ad. Meaning, everything that you once did inside your email, you can now do outside your email, including video targeting.

Measuring the value of these new email monetization tactics is relatively easy. Basic CPM, CPC, and click-through rates will suffice. Most important, there are no opportunity costs, since most publishers fail to take advantage of email post-click opportunities to begin with.

Measuring the risk associated with these tactics is different. Raw email statistics such as opens, clicks and opt-outs are important, but applying a new combination of ratios can reveal a more telling story. The first new statistic publishers need to be mindful of is the open to click-through rate: that is, the total or unique clicks divided by the total or unique opens (clicks/total opens). If subscribers are conditioned to know they will see an interstitial or targeted ad unit, and are vehemently opposed to the practice, they won't click an email link. If this happens this statistic will fall precipitously, resulting in lower email engagement.

The second statistic is the click to opt-out rate, calculated by dividing the number of opt-outs by the total or unique clicks. If this statistic rises after implementing a post-click monetization program, the increase signifies greater than normal list attrition. To get a better understanding of your program's risk, it is best to compare these statistics to both before and after its implementation.

Despite some initial reservations by publishers, almost all realized that post-click email monetization programs provide new revenue opportunities with minimal risk.

If you’re not creating content, start! If you are, create more!

These days marketing success goes beyond banners, email and search engine marketing. With the proliferation of digital channels and the screens that support them, marketers need to invest more in content development that entertains, delights, educates and moves their customers to buy. In the past decade, the quants overtook marketing departments at the cost of creativity, resulting in a sea of mediocre content.

Since the demand for content is growing to a louder beat, balance is gradually being restored as companies rush to strengthen their customer bonds through videos, blogs, social media and games. Contrary to the trend, effective content development doesn’t require big budgets. In fact, small to medium sized businesses in particular can master content marketing without blowing their creative budgets and in a way that adds value to their brand.

Almost a year ago, we wrote about the value of a strong content marketing campaign in our post “Giving Content Development High Priority”. Back then we stressed its importance as a foundation for marketing automation. However, today the value of quality content goes far beyond that. Tony Quin, CEO of IQ, a full service agency said in a recent post for Marketing Daily that “compelling content is the currency that buys your customer’s attention and affection long before they reach the stage of comparing features and benefits.” Knowing this, its obvious that every business CAN and SHOULD be a publisher. There is an immense amount of marketing clutter out there for businesses to compete with. Creating content that adds value to your brand will be what separates you from the competition.

Trend: Infographics - Helping Marketers Cut Through The Clutter

Marketing in the 21st century has become immensely complex due to channel fragmentation and an avalanche of data creation. On any given day, Internet users will create 1.5 billion pieces of content on Facebook, tweet 140 million times on Twitter and upload 2 million videos to YouTube. According to a joint study conducted by IDC and EMC, it is estimated that the general public will create 1.8 zettabytes of data in 2011, with that number expected to double within the next two years. To put 1.8 zettabytes into perspective, the number is equivalent to 200 billion high definition movies each 120 minutes long. These new data complexities are the result of convoluted digital relationships, advances in scientific discoveries and the speed of new media.