Citizen Media Business Issues: Ad Space
From the Center for Citizen Media...
(This is the eighth in a series of postings about citizen media business issues. See the introduction here. All of these entries are considered to be in “beta” and will be revised and refined as they find a home on a more permanent area of the Center for Citizen Media web site. To that end, your comments, additional examples, and criticisms are welcome and will be invaluable contributions to this process.)
The most common way for a website to earn revenue is one of the most traditional forms of monetization: selling advertising space. This process has gotten much easier in recent years with the rise of ad networks like Google’s AdSense and AdBrite. The ease, scope, and effectiveness of ad networks may make them attractive for many citizen journalists, but they are not the only form of advertising available to you. Affiliate programs and merchandising are two other routes that may be even more profitable to use instead of (or alongside) ads from a network.
Once you determine what type of ads you’ll display, be sure to consider how your readers will see your ads (both in terms of effectiveness and the level of intrusiveness). Consider also how advertising may affect your journalistic integrity and your appearance of objectivity, as well as your legal obligation to disclose that you are being paid to promote or review a product, should you ever choose to engage in that kind of activity...
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(This is the eighth in a series of postings about citizen media business issues. See the introduction here. All of these entries are considered to be in “beta” and will be revised and refined as they find a home on a more permanent area of the Center for Citizen Media web site. To that end, your comments, additional examples, and criticisms are welcome and will be invaluable contributions to this process.)
The most common way for a website to earn revenue is one of the most traditional forms of monetization: selling advertising space. This process has gotten much easier in recent years with the rise of ad networks like Google’s AdSense and AdBrite. The ease, scope, and effectiveness of ad networks may make them attractive for many citizen journalists, but they are not the only form of advertising available to you. Affiliate programs and merchandising are two other routes that may be even more profitable to use instead of (or alongside) ads from a network.
Once you determine what type of ads you’ll display, be sure to consider how your readers will see your ads (both in terms of effectiveness and the level of intrusiveness). Consider also how advertising may affect your journalistic integrity and your appearance of objectivity, as well as your legal obligation to disclose that you are being paid to promote or review a product, should you ever choose to engage in that kind of activity...
- continued -