As publishers look for new ways to generate revenue without compromising the reader experience, with intrusive ads, commerce content has become the solution on the tip of every publisher’s tongue. In this article, Skimlinks’ CEO, Sebastien Blanc explains how publishers implementing commerce content correctly, can use it to drive 25 percent of their revenue.
Publishers nowadays depend on a wide range of revenue channels to grow: paid ads of course but also events, subscriptions, micropayments, and more to keep the ship afloat in the stormy seas they operate in. Last year closed with further consolidations, and more can be expected in the months and years ahead, as publishers battle to convince readers their content is quality enough to capture their attention and/or money. Commerce content is also increasingly part of the arsenal available to content publishers as they actively monetize the role they play in informing people’s purchases. Editorial teams have always helped people know what products to buy, but only in the past decade have they really capitalized on it as a money spinner, receiving rewards rightfully owed to them by the brands and retailers that benefit from editorial endorsements. Now, the most advanced publishers generate up to 25% of their revenue from commerce content.
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The best commerce publishers have scale in common. Through a consistent series of steps taken, they have been able to take commerce content from a passive revenue stream to an active part of their strategy that helps drive profitability. It isn’t only digital natives either: for every BuzzFeed there’s a New York Magazine or New York Times that have found a way to make commerce work for them – respectively by creating a brand new domain and through acquisition. Each commerce journey is different, but each shares a few key components.
To start, they make a commitment or investment in commerce content. That can be hiring someone to do it, finding someone internally to take it on or committing to sending meaningful audiences on a regular basis to commerce content written by someone else. It also need not necessarily start as a totally dedicated person: They might spend one day a week on commerce content, and begin from there. The most successful publishers build dedicated teams: a decade into the proliferation of commerce content at publishers, there are now lots of commerce editors out there. In a vast majority of cases, there is already some historic content that can easily be adapted for commerce, but where they need to start from scratch hiring a dedicated commerce editor helps speed things up. Ideally, these are people that have good writing skills and are avid shoppers, specifically of products a publisher’s readership are likely to purchase themselves.
While staffing the team adequately or at least having access to enough quality commerce content, it is critical to create a differentiated commerce strategy. As unhelpful as it always sounds, strategy will vary from publisher to publisher and there is no secret formula. Sometimes publishers know instinctively the products and brands their audience care about, in other cases they need to experiment to find out what people want advice on buying and will purchase once they’ve been able to make up their mind. In other instances, the problem is less the products and a more a frequency for publishing: How much shopping appetite is there? One post a week? Or two? Or more? If it isn’t about frequency, it could also be about what teams are involved and how quickly to move. It entirely depends on where audiences are, but publishers with engaged email newsletter subscribers for example will often look at how to incorporate commerce into that channel and use that as a more direct route for revenue: Why write an article when you can drop an email featuring monetized product links into someone’s inbox?
A long-running attraction of commerce content has been the possibility to automate revenue generation. By installing a single piece of code on their website, publishers can automatically earn commissions when a click on a link in one of their articles that directs the reader to a brand’s website results in a sale taking place. But the best go beyond this, and have adopted further solutions to augment the revenue earning potential. One option is price comparison widgets, which automatically pull relevant products at different price points into product carousels, enabling readers’ to make informed choices and purchases that suit the budget they’re working with. They also facilitate publishers in their mission to appeal broadly to as many readers as possible. Another example might be implementing a dedicated solution for mobile, like AMP articles, extending content monetization to growing audiences there.
Underpinning every best practice and every top performing publisher is a commitment to authenticity. Unlike sponsored content, there is no upfront payment for commerce content and the article is written because the journalists want to write it, not because they are being paid for. It is an endorsement more than advertising. Readers trust that editors select products that they truly believe in, and that trust is vital to ensure a publisher’s content inspires sales. The minute readers suspect a writer is no longer giving genuine advice on products they like or would buy themselves they will leave. The opinion is no longer authentic and that matters a lot to people. A brand’s reputation is the key leverage they have to convince people to buy a product.
A related element to this is that writing commerce content opportunistically is a great revenue generator, but it can’t be the entire commerce strategy. Major events like Black Friday are a great way to get started or boost the yearly revenue, but focusing on such “e-commerce events†alone won’t be enough to turn commerce revenues into 20% of a publisher’s revenue. Indeed, in order to be genuine and establish themselves in the service journalism space, publishers need to create commerce content year round and provide a real service to readers. This has two added benefits: It ensures readers are accustomed to commerce content, expect it and know the recommendations made are genuine, and also opens up further revenue generation opportunities for the publisher in question. Once those steps have been taken, it’s just about repetition until scale has been achieved.
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The lead publishers today have recognized the need to look beyond an ad-driven revenue model and embrace a diverse mix of ways of making money. Commerce may lack the attention of events, the profile of subscriptions or constant chatter lavished on sponsored content and native advertising, but it should be a key part of the revenue mix for publishers. In many cases it enables publishers to earn revenue from content they were already creating, and moreover actually has the promise of improving the editorial experience on offer to readers.Â