Delivering personalized content is key to capturing user attention and driving engagement. However, personalization is only as good as the data behind it. That’s where Identity (ID) Graph solutions come into play. By leveraging ID solutions, publishers can connect data points across devices and platforms, helping deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time.

What’s an ID Graph Solution?

An ID Graph solution connects a user’s interactions across multiple devices, platforms, and channels, creating a unified profile that informs how content is personalized. This holistic view, often referred to as an “Identity Graph,” provides publishers with the ability to deliver content experiences that are finely tuned to individual user behavior and preferences.

Here’s how an ID Graph makes content personalization a reality:

1. Comprehensive Audience Profiles

ID Graphs aggregate user data from multiple sources, creating rich audience profiles. These profiles allow publishers to deliver personalized content tailored to each user’s preferences, behaviors, and interests, and the usage of a device The result? More relevant content that leads to highly targeted content that boosts more engagement, and increased loyalty.

2. Smarter Content Recommendations

ID solutions enhance your ability to offer more accurate content recommendations by drawing on a user’s history across devices and channels. By serving personalized recommendations, publishers can guide users to consume more content, driving deeper engagement that increases the time spent on the site, and improve the click-through rates.

3. Cross-Device Content Consistency

With an ID Graph, users can receive personalized content no matter which device they’re using. This cross-device consistency is vital for maintaining engagement as users switch between mobile, desktop, and other devices thus ensuring the ads are being delivered seamlessly across devices.

4. Increased Relevance

Using an ID Graph allows you to deliver content based on highly specific user behaviors. Whether it’s adjusting headlines or recommending articles, the increased relevance makes users feel more connected to your site. This not only makes the website relevant but also can drastically reduce bounce rates and increase page views, achieving a higher level of personalization.

5. Detailed Audience Segmentation

ID solutions enable publishers to segment their audience with incredible detail. By understanding nuanced behavior patterns, publishers can tailor content for specific audience segments, delivering hyper-relevant material that improves engagement. The more tailored your content, the more time users spend on your site.

6. Boosted Engagement

Personalized content has been proven to generate higher engagement. With an ID Graph, publishers can present users with content that aligns perfectly with their interests, boosting click-through rates and interaction. This increase in engagement not only helps build loyalty but also contributes to higher ad revenues.

7. Optimized Ad Targeting

ID solutions don’t just enhance content personalization—they also improve ad personalization mapping a better user journey.. By using the same data to tailor both content and ads, publishers can ensure that users see ads that are relevant and engaging, leading to higher click-through rates and better monetization opportunities.

8. Data-driven decisions

 As ID solutions provide valuable insights into the various user behavior on the site, it helps publishers to make not only data-driven decisions but be data-informed as well at all times. This will in turn boost better content creation, superior ad placements, that will in turn impact the ad revenue. 

These help in creating long-lasting relationships with the audiences by ensuring that each interaction feels tailored and relevant. 

9. Be compliant

While privacy concerns are becoming highly notable across industries, ID solutions create “privacy-friendly” ways to target users. The shift away from third-party cookies encourages greater transparency and empowers users to have more control over their data, improving online security and reducing cyber threats.

10. Future-Proofing Personalization Efforts

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, reliance on first-party data becomes even more crucial. ID Graphs allow publishers to maintain personalized content delivery even as third-party cookies disappear, ensuring they remain competitive and continue providing a valuable, relevant user experience.

Don’t Miss Out: Elevate Your Content Strategy with ID Solutions

Personalized content is no longer optional—it’s essential. Implementing an ID Graph solution allows publishers to offer tailored content that captivates users, drives deeper engagement, and boosts revenue.

At Freestar, we help publishers unlock the full potential of their content by integrating powerful ID solutions. Contact us today to learn how we can help you personalize your content and enhance your monetization strategy.

The post Top 10 Reasons Why ID Solutions Help in Personalizing Content first appeared on Freestar.

To gain further insights and strategies for managing publisher traffic and maximizing revenue, watch our recorded webinar, The Truth About Publisher Traffic

Watch Now

The post Top 10 Reasons How ID Graph Solutions Help in Increasing CPM Rates first appeared on Freestar.

The most recent Google core update appears to be one of the most positive updates that Google has released, especially for smaller publishers, specializing in user-focused content! Google has stated that,
“This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.”

In the last 2 weeks, we have seen numerous publishers experience increases in traffic, demonstrating the positive impact for those who prioritize user experience over search engine algorithms. 

To recover from a Google penalty or a significant traffic decline following a core update requires strategic action and can be a lengthy process, often spanning over months. However, core updates present a unique opportunity for recovery as websites are reassessed against the new guidelines. There is a strong reason to believe that the publishers who have invested in creating high-quality, user-centric content will see their sites rise in search rankings during these times.  

It’s important to adopt a proactive approach to website optimization rather than passively waiting for updates to change the game. Publishers should have a plan and a strategy that is being reviewed and implemented to ensure their website’s continued success. By implementing these guidelines below, publishers can capitalize on traffic gains and maintain a competitive edge in the ever-evolving search engine landscape.

1. Know your Audience.

Understanding your audience is paramount in creating content that resonates with them and is an essential key step to delving into your audience development strategies. Direct users are the most stable of traffic sources that take pressure off the rise and fall of search engines. This aligns with Google’s EEAT standards enabling you to produce high-quality valuable content that is curated specifically for your audience.

2. Track your Metrics.

Be proactive in investing time in evaluating your Google Analytics (GA4) dashboard to understand what content is performing well and those that are not. Knowing what content is performing better and those that are falling short, you can make data-driven decisions that can make or break your content strategy. Embracing a flexible approach and adjusting your priority based on performance metrics is key to maximizing the website’s traffic.

3. Audit Existing Content

Avoid being hindered by outdated content that no longer meets current-day standards. Refreshing existing or evergreen content can be a relatively efficient way to keep your website content fresh and engaging.. If content is not able to be updated, placing a NoIndex tag can prevent it from being indexed by search engines, thus avoiding potential penalties

4. First-Party Data Strategy

Implementing a strategic approach to obtain your users’ First Party Data is critical to optimizing site revenue and owning your own audience. Gaining a way to target your audience can help with things like newsletters which can gain site traffic, surveys which helps you know your audience, and even integrating additional interactions on the site through voting systems. Furthermore, having FPD allows for optimized revenue through your ad partner (Freestar!) as CPM’s are higher when the ads are curated for the specific user. 

By following the above guidelines you can be in a place to be positively impacted when core updates are launched. While optimizing your site remains crucial, it should never come at the detriment of the user experience.  

More important than that, by following the above best practices you can improve your site and make the user experience better. You want to be a site that users are coming back to, are typing your site in their browser, have tagged and saved and used in their everyday lives. Google appears to be finally listening to the publishers and there are a lot of positive changes happening. Provide the best, user-first content that you can, and the traffic will follow!

Learn more on how Freestar can efficiently monetize your content while maintaining a positive user experience. 

The post Google’s New Game: Are you a Winner? first appeared on Freestar.

To gain further insights and strategies for managing publisher traffic and maximizing revenue, watch our recorded webinar, The Truth About Publisher Traffic

Watch Now

The post The Current State of Publisher Website Traffic and How to Avoid Algorithm Penalties first appeared on Freestar.

Several industry experts like Mike King, Rand Fishkin and Danny Goodwin have provided helpful recaps, but these can be highly technical. Here’s a TLDR; a simplified summary of their key points and actionable steps for publishers.

Biggest Takeaways For Publishers

1. Brand Mentions are as Good as Links

Backlinks (ie links pointing to your site from other websites) have long been a crucial SEO factor, based on the theory that people link to content they love, indicating high quality. The API leak confirms that backlinks still matter, but brand mentions are now equally important. Increased brand mentions signal popularity, just like backlinks. For publishers, having a strong presence across various digital channels, like social media, email marketing, and online communities, can help increase the amount of people who know about and talk about your brand.

Actionable Steps:

• Build a strong presence across digital channels outside of Google Search (social media, email marketing, online communities).
• Enhance brand recognition.
• Create quality, engaging content that establishes your brand’s authority and trustworthiness.

2. Monitor your Clickstream Data

The leak revealed that Chrome clickstream data is the most powerful ranking signal. Clickstream data includes user navigation details, such as pages visited, time spent, next destinations, and exit speed. Clickstream data is measured any time a URL loads in a browser, from any referring source.

Actionable Steps:

• Create content that attracts and retains users.
• Use tools like SimilarWeb or Google Analytics to analyze user interaction.
• Monitor metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and click-through rates.

3. All Traffic Matters

Metrics from all traffic types impact organic search rankings. Great content and exceptional user experience reflect positively in metrics, which Google rewards. Conversely, low-quality traffic can harm rankings. Google uses a variety of measurements, including badClicks, goodClicks, lastLongestClicks and unsquashedClicks to determine value of a webpage.

Actionable Steps:

• Focus on attracting high-quality traffic.
• Avoid buying low-quality traffic that results in short sessions.

4. Google Systems are Connected

The leak introduced a factor called “glue,” which integrates signals from other Google platforms (YouTube, Google Maps, Google Reviews) into the organic ranking system.

Actionable Steps:

• Maintain a presence on relevant Google platforms.
• Create helpful videos on YouTube and embed them in your articles.

5. SEO Basics of the Past are Still Relevant

Factors like Pagerank, backlinks, authorship, entities, meta data, HTML title tags, page speed, and structured data remain important.

Actionable Steps:

• • Read Google’s quality rater guidelines to understand what constitutes high-quality content.
  • Add structured data to your pages (organization, article, breadcrumb, and sitelinks)

Focus on Quality and User Experience, and Signals Will Follow

To succeed in Google’s organic search index, publishers must focus on delivering value to their customers through high-quality products, services, content, and experiences. Google’s advanced algorithms evaluate how users interact with your content and consider signals from other platforms where your brand is present.

When people value your business, they will contribute links, reviews, and brand mentions. They will engage with your site, share your content, and visit regularly. These signals help Google determine your placement in search results, reflecting the value of your brand.

Building a valuable brand leads to better search rankings, as Google measures data from all these interactions to decide who ranks at the top.

The post 5 Big Takeaways For Publishers From Google’s API Leak first appeared on Freestar.

Freestar is fortunate enough that our work does not need to be done in a specific place to be executed successfully. About half of our employees previously worked from their houses, from all over the country. For anyone who is anxiously entering uncharted territory as a first-time remote worker, our Freestar family is here to help make that transition a little bit easier.

Keeping in mind that what works best for remote workers will vary from person to person, we asked a few of our employees to share what keeps them focused and inspired when working in their own homes. This is how our remote working veterans take full advantage of the opportunities that a remote working lifestyle gives them, while remaining positive, healthy and on the path to success.

Matt Burgess | SVP, Revenue Operations
Portland, ME, USA

“If I’m in my house, then I’m near my computer. Productivity is never an issue, and video conference calls are a game-changer. No commute means more time to focus and build a schedule that works for me.”

Matt’s tips:

• Create an office space that is physically comfortable. Example: When I first started, I skimped on buying office furniture. Now I have a stand-up desk and a much more comfortable office chair. I wish I did this from day one.
• Stay physically active.
• Listen to music and/or podcasts in between calls.

Carrie Landers | Associate Director, Publisher Support
Dayton, OH, USA

“Always make sure to strike a healthy balance between work and home. Clear lines will help you focus when you’re working and unwind when you’re done.”

Carrie’s tips:

• Have a clearly designated area for work. Don’t just sit on your couch with a laptop, have a desk in a space you don’t commonly use (like a guest room) so you can easily separate your work-life from your home-life.
• Go for a walk. If you’re able to get up and take a quick turn around your block, you should. Fresh air and a change of scenery will do you good!
• Invest in a good pair of headphones with a built-in mic. The ability to block out potential distractions is important when working from home but you should also make sure your co-workers can hear you over any background noise (from kids, roommates, or pets) on conference calls. And always remember to mute yourself if you’re not the presenter on a call!

Shaina Lam | Director, Revenue Operations
Costa Mesa, CA, USA

“Freestar employees work in several different time zones. Working remotely gives us the flexibility to work the hours that work for us the best but can also lead to working non-standard hours. Sometimes I find myself working late hours and need to provide a team member an update or ask a question. To respect their time, I always schedule messages to be delivered first thing the next morning if it is not urgent. Maintaining a healthy remote work environment requires us to respect each other’s time and to clearly communicate the urgency of the question or request.”

Shaina’s tips:

• Taking short breaks to play with my pup outside so I feel rejuvenated when I go back to work.
• Working in a sunny place.
• Keeping a notebook nearby to add to my to-do list. I did this when I worked in an office but stopped doing it when I started working remotely and kept notes on my laptop. I found that handwriting my to-do list was much more effective because of the muscle memory and being able to physically check things off gave me a sense of completion.

Julia DeHerrera | Onboarding Success Manager
Oceanside, CA, USA

“Since the majority of my coworkers are on the east coast/in other parts of the world, they’ve already been working for several hours before I log on, so my mornings are a lot busier than my afternoons. Right before I start working, I pour myself a cup of coffee and then right at 8 am PST on the dot, I dive straight into my emails and Salesforce notifications. The afternoons are lot quieter so I usually go into the backyard and work from my hammock if I don’t have any calls scheduled for the rest of the day. It’s super relaxing and I’m very fortunate to be able to do stuff like that. It’s nice being able to get most of my work done in the morning and focus on other smaller tasks in the afternoon. It’s a good balance.”

Julia’s tips:

• Try switching up where you work, go to a coffee shop, or try a family member/friend’s house to change the scenery.
• Buy a standing office desk, this is a game changer for when you’re tired of sitting all day!
• Find a fun healthy drink that can give you energy to finish out your day with a bang! I personally like the Poppi drinks or the Culture Pop drinks.

Ruslan Krastev | Yield Manager
Varna, Bulgaria

“I appreciate the flexibility that remote work give me, allowing me to prioritize important tasks when I am most productive, rather than confining myself to a specific 9-5 time frame. Additionally, the absence of a daily commute significantly improves my work-life balance, giving me the freedom to go to the gym every day, prepare wholesome homemade meals for my lunch break, and even take a power nap when needed!”

Ruslan’s tips:

• Create a focused work environment by minimizing distractions. Silence notifications on your phone, close unnecessary browser tabs, and try not to visit distracting websites or social media.
• Explore flexible work schedules to find what suits you best – do early mornings or evenings work best for you? Adapt your work schedule to align with your natural energy levels and optimize productivity.
• Establish rituals that signify the start and end of your workday. This could be as simple as brewing a cup of coffee in the morning or taking a short walk after finishing work. Rituals help create psychological boundaries and improve work-life balance.

Nikita Prokhin | Customer Success Manager
Brooklyn, NY, USA

“Working from home has been a transformative experience for me as a young professional. It has provided me with the flexibility to design my ideal work environment, allowing me to seamlessly balance my personal and professional life. By eliminating the daily commute and office distractions, I have created a work environment that allows me to focus on my tasks with greater ease and concentration. This flexibility has not only improved my overall well-being but also provided me with ample opportunities to spend quality time with my animals, which I was not really able to do while working in an office. Overall, working from home has not only enhanced my productivity but has also enriched my life by reducing stress and allowing me to do more throughout the day.”

Nikita’s tips:

• Establish a daily WFH routine or staple. Mine is grinding and making my own coffee each morning. That fresh coffee smell and that first taste get me ready for whatever I have to face during the day.
• Take short breaks to recharge, your couch is likely only a few steps away.
• Set, organize, and prioritize your goals and tasks. Prioritize your workload based on urgency and importance to stay organized and focused.
• Use the time you would typically use commuting to better yourself. Whether it’s going to the gym or reading a book, with more time on your hands there are endless opportunities.

Vineeta Sajnani | Yield Manager
Bengaluru, India

“I love working remotely because it gives me the freedom to travel and work from anywhere, eliminating the hassles of traffic and commuting during peak working time. I can save precious hours to focus on my health, pursue side projects, or enjoy quality time with my loved ones.The autonomy to manage my time as I see fit allows me to be more mindful and create a well-rounded life that aligns with my passions and priorities.”

Vineeta’s tips:

• Establish a consistent schedule and stick to it. Set clear work hours and breaks to maintain a healthy work-life balance. It also helps me with staying focused throughout the day.
• Working from home allows me to have more control over my time. Embrace the flexibility and utilize this opportunity to prioritize self-care activities like exercise, meditation, or pursuing hobbies like traveling.
• Take small breaks throughout the day and try to not scroll through your phone during breaks. I like going for a short walk or squeezing in a quick stretching session between meetings. It helps with alleviating eye strain and refreshes my mind.

Interested in working at Freestar? Check out our open roles!

The post Remote Life – How Freestar Makes It Work first appeared on Freestar.

We’re always publishing subsequent articles to help explain the various terms that float around the digital media and ad technology space. Now without further ado, here’s our first batch of terms around ad serving to get you started – enjoy!

• Ads.txt specifies a mechanism for publishers to list their authorized digital sellers, in order to fight against fraud and misrepresented domains.
• Ad Blocker is a software tool that prevents ads from being displayed on a web page.
• Ad Exchange is an online marketplace where advertisers and publishers can buy and sell ad inventory through programmatic advertising.
• Ad Fraud is any deliberate activity that attempts to serve ads that have no potential to be viewed by a real person.
• Ad Inventory is the number of ad impressions available for sale on a publisher’s website or mobile app. In other words, these are the commodities available for the advertisers to buy on the website.
• Ad Price Floors are the lowest price that a publisher will sell their ad inventory for on the open exchange/marketplace. For instance, if a publisher sets their ad price floor at $1.25 CPM, it means that a publisher will not accept bids lower than $1.25 CPM for the ad unit(s) on their website/mobile app. Applying price floors is an advanced tactic that publishers will use to find the optimal price that advertisers are willing to pay. They also balance their price floor strategy with the coinciding fill rate for their ad inventory. 
• Ad Requests are actions in which your website sends a request to your ad server to fill an ad unit with an advertisement. An ad request is made when a user starts loading your webpage/mobile app. The ad request action will happen for every ad unit on a specific webpage. Ad requests can be counted even if no ads were returned/delivered from your advertisers.
• Ad Servers help publishers gain better control over their ad inventory by giving them access to various features such as ad management, rotating creatives, direct selling of inventory, advanced reporting, and much more.
• Ad Tags are snippets of code generated from an ad server that allows for ad serving on web pages, or within mobile apps where ads need to display.
• Ad Unit is a term used to describe the advertisement space on a website/mobile app – IE a 300×250 ad unit. It’s widely used within Google’s range of advertising products such as Google Ad Manager, AdExchange and AdSense.
• Ad Unit ID is the unique ID that identifies a specific ad unit on a website or app.
• Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions (CPM)is the amount that an advertiser pays for every 1,000 ad impressions served on a web page.
• Demand-Side Platform (DSP) is a tool that advertisers use to buy and manage ad inventory across multiple ad exchanges and supply-side platforms (SSPs).
• Header Bidding is a technique that allows publishers to offer their ad inventory to multiple ad exchanges simultaneously before sending the ad request to their ad server.
• Key-Values are the ways to further segment the inventory on a web page or mobile app for reporting and targeting. If you are a sports website, you might use a key-value pair to differentiate between the type of sport you are writing about. Ex. “Sport=Football” would be a key-value where “Sport” is the key and “Football” is the value of that key. These pairs often match the taxonomy a publisher has in their CMS for the content they produce.
• Programmatic Advertising is the use of automated systems and algorithms to buy and sell ad inventory in real-time auctions.
• Real-Time Bidding (RTB) is a type of programmatic advertising in which ad inventory is bought and sold through real-time auctions.
• Supply-Side Platform (SSP) is a platform that publishers use to manage their ad inventory and sell it through ad exchanges and DSPs.
• Viewability is a metric that measures whether an ad is actually seen by a user on a web page.

We hope that was a useful first dive into ad tech terms. Be on the lookout for future articles where we’ll dive deeper into additional segments of the industry. Also, if you have any additional questions and would like to chat with someone at Freestar, please contact us here.

The post Ad Tech From A to Z – Volume 1 first appeared on Freestar.

However, email monetization didn’t really get its fair share of attention until the pandemic took hold of the world — and then everything changed. Now email newsletter campaigns are considered a prime monetization strategy for all marketing purposes — and it’s a highly profitable strategy at that.

Not to mention, email as a marketing channel has also become an important way for digital publishers to improve their overall revenue.

If you want to know how publishers like yourself can go about implementing an email monetization strategy to drive brand awareness and website traffic, then keep reading. We’ll tell you everything you need to know and more below.

What Is Email Monetization and Why Is it Important?

When we talk about monetizing your email channel, we’re talking about utilizing email as a direct marketing channel to your target audience. Email marketing is a way to let businesses share new products, news, sales, and other eye-catching information directly to their contact list. The contact list in question is comprised of consumers that have purposely opted in to receive these emails, hence the potential for a higher ROI.

Today, email marketing focuses on consent, personalization, and segmentation versus the mass mailings of yesterday. By design, this allows for more precise audience targeting, with several types of marketing emails to boost each campaign. These emails can be promotional or strictly informational. They’re also used to serve the buyer’s journey. For example, it’s common to send out follow-up email notifications along with an incentive for consumers that abandon their digital shopping carts.

Essentially, email marketing campaigns have greater potential for personalization, allowing you to speak directly to your audience since you’re getting access to each of their inboxes.

Email marketing also generates one of the highest ROIs out of all the marketing channels, averaging about $36 for every one dollar spent in a campaign. Email is also one of the most used communication methods in the world to date. It’s also the longest-lasting.

For some perspective, over four billion people use email daily to communicate and stay informed on the latest news and trends in various topics and industries. Therefore, it’s not too surprising that the email marketing industry is currently projected to hit upwards of $17.9 billion by 2027.

So, what we have here is a large and ultra-targetable audience, a positive ROI, and swift growth. These are not things you want to miss out on.

How to Monetize Your Email Lists

There are several ways that businesses and publishers alike can monetize their email lists. Of course, you’d have to pique user interest to garner subscribers first, but from there you can use whichever strategy works best for you.

Here are some of the best ways to monetize your subscriber list:

Monetize Through Ads

Monetization through ads is arguably the simplest and best way to monetize your emails. All it takes is a well-designed newsletter that consistently adds value to your viewers’ lives to generate a favorable revenue stream. 

The best part about email ads is that they’re not viewed as spam, which means they’ll always make it to your audience’s inbox. Unless, of course, they decide to unsubscribe from your email list. More importantly, this is your opportunity to take advantage of targeted ads to deliver a more personalized user experience for those who decide to stick around.

When you take a look at the metrics, personalized email ads can end up boosting your click-through rates simply because users will respond to the content that’s most relevant to them and their needs. 

Use a Paid Subscription Model to Deliver Premium Content

Another great way to monetize your email newsletters is by creating premium content for your subscribers — and charging them for it regularly. 

However, there’s one caveat: You’ll need to ensure that you’re providing your subscribers with unique and valuable content that they can’t get anywhere else. This can be a challenge for publishers, but sometimes all it takes is providing a sneak peek of the type of content you put in your email newsletters to pique enough paid interest.

Just make sure that you have enough free content that allows you to establish yourself as an expert in your niche or an authoritative source of information. Otherwise, you run the risk of putting people off.

Sell Products or Services 

Another common way of monetizing email newsletters is by selling products or services directly to your audience in them. You can even make use of your own solo ads, whether it’s an announcement, a reminder, a special sale, a launch date, and so on.

Just make sure that you’re still delivering the best content possible. After all, that’s what your subscribers are there for — not exhaustive sales pitches. 

Affiliate Marketing

If you don’t have your own products or services to sell, you can always try selling someone else’s products or services via affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is fairly simple as it involves selling someone else’s offering for a commission of those sales.

The key is to choose the brands that will appeal to your audience most and cross-sell the product and services they’re most likely to buy.

Email Monetization Best Practices

Choosing a preferred monetization strategy for your email list is just the first step. You’ll also need to understand how to tweak your strategy so that it works in your favor to keep your momentum going. This requires understanding the best practices of email monetization, as in what to do and what not to do. 

Here are a few important best practices that everyone should follow regarding email list monetization:

Use Analytics to Figure Out the Best Times to Send an Email

A high number of subscribers won’t do you any good if you’re not getting your content in front of their eyes at the right time. Now, the right time for emailing is subjective, just as it is for posting content on social media or on your website. This means you’ll need to keep up with your metrics so you can plan the perfect times to send out each newsletter.

In this case, the metrics that matter most are the open and click-through rates. These are the metrics that give you a clear picture of the most effective times to send out your emails. By measuring these metrics on a daily basis, you can pinpoint the exact times that are yielding the best results so you can start scheduling your emails for the times they’re most likely to be opened and engaged with.

Also, don’t ignore the already proven send times. This would include holidays, anniversaries, and other important dates.

Segment Your Audience For Precision Targeting

Email marketing is all about personalization, which is why it’s important to segment your email list. There are a lot of criteria by which you can segment your email list audience, but the most important piece of information you want to get out of this is who has the best open and click-through rates. 

Knowing which email addresses yield the best engagement results will help you get to know your subscribers better. From there, you can segment them by demographics, open rates, content interests, product interests, past behaviors, and so on. This will allow you to narrow your focus on tailoring your content to these specific groups to ensure you get the best results by targeting the subscribers that are truly interested in what’s next.

Include Native Ads

A lot of ad-based email advertising success is attributed to native advertising. Native ads are already popular for website advertising, and they’re becoming increasingly popular in email newsletters thanks to the automated processes that make them tick.

In addition to not appearing as an obvious ad, native advertising also provides you with options such as content recommendation blocks and custom in-feed placements. They also resemble the type of editorial content that fits into your newsletter organically and seamlessly without disrupting the user experience — which is the whole point. 

Test For Best Performance Frequently

Performance testing is a non-negotiable aspect of anything programmatic or involving marketing. It doesn’t matter if you have a full list of email subscribers, you still need to reduce the risk of alienating any subscribers by running A/B tests to see what’s working and what’s not.

The best thing about email marketing is that you’re already working with a strong base — i.e., the people who have opted into receiving information from you. What’s more, is that many of them have likely already been to your website to consume your content or purchase a product or service from you. 

However, testing the different content elements such as layout, body text, images, offers, CTAs and more will make a significant difference in your engagement results and ROI.  

Email marketing is one of the best ways to attract new customers and retain current ones, and that’s mostly because it offers a great deal of personalization. By implementing the strategy that works best for your business and your audience and keeping up with the best practices in your implementation, you’ll continue to see favorable results with each campaign and newsletter.

The post Best Practices For Email Monetization first appeared on Freestar.

One of the most frequently asked questions is around RPM, specifically, why can’t we guarantee how much revenue they will make or what their projected RPM is going to be? To be honest, this is a difficult question to answer because it depends on various factors.

Let’s dive into what RPM is and what those factors are.

What is RPM?

RPM stands for “revenue per thousand” (with M being the Roman numeral for 1,000) and is used to calculate what publishers earn if all your advertisers were using a CPM model. This is an important metric for publishers who run ads on their website(s) because it shows how much a publisher could earn for every 1,000 impressions. 

RPM is calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of impressions, and the result is then multiplied by 1000. For example, a website that gets 40,000 page views a day and generates $600 in daily ad revenue has an RPM of $15. 

$600 revenue / 40,000 pageviews x 1,000 = $15.00 page RPM

How is RPM determined?

The reason why I tell publishers “it depends” is because RPMs vary for many different reasons. It’s important to remember that every publisher is different from their website layout, their SEO strategy and ranking, to their traffic so there’s no magical formula that factors all of these differences and provides a projected RPM.

These are some of the factors that impact RPM:

• Seasonality – There are seasonal trends within advertising and they’re tied to brand budgets (January seeing the lowest and November seeing the highest spend) and the type of content on your website. As a result, RPMs fluctuate with seasonality.
  
  In the summer, for example, we see a slump in revenue. If we were to give you a projected RPM based on your revenue in July, that would not be accurate and would not factor in that traffic is slower than usual. On the other hand, if you’re a baseball site, your traffic will probably be higher in the summer months compared to a ski website that has higher traffic in the winter. 
• Content Niche – Some verticals perform better than others and this can vary on seasonality as well. For example, if it’s the Super Bowl, the RPMs on a football-based or sports-based website will do much better than a cooking website. But, let’s say you are a cooking website and decide to do a series on Super Bowl party food ideas, then you can still tap into advertiser budgets.
• Traffic Source – Higher quality traffic tends to have higher RPMs. Advertisers will pay more for the audience they’re targeting and this can mean different things for different campaigns (geos, gender, user identity, etc.). 
• Engagement – The better engagement (i.e. time on page, bounce rate) you have the higher your RPM can be. If you have high engagement on your website, that can translate to higher quality traffic and viewability. Viewability over 70% gives you access to premium campaigns which unlocks better paying ads.
  
• Advertiser Budgets – It all comes down to advertiser budgets at the end of the day and what spend they have available for campaigns. The best way to optimize for this is to improve your overall website and increase viewability (higher viewability = premium campaigns). 
• SEO – It’s important to focus on building strong content that your audience cares about and a website that puts user experience first. This could mean creating a long scroll experience to increase time-on-page, recirculating content to provide an easy path for user t move from page to page or improving your traffic source (organic search has higher RPMs). At Freestar, we offer publishers workshops and one-on-one time with our Audience Development to strategize ways to improve RPM. 

What is my projected RPM?

Like we shared in this article, the answer to this question is it depends. There are so many factors to consider from seasonality, traffic souce, engagement, etc. The next time you’re asking this question don’t be surprised if you can’t get a straight-forward answer. 

If you’re interested in learning what Freestar can do for you, you can get started today by completing this form. 

The post FAQ: “What Is My Projected RPM?” first appeared on Freestar.

Continue reading to learn how Hanes turned his passion project into the platform it is today! 

Note: Responses may have been edited for clarity.

What motivated you to start The Game Haus?

The Game Haus was a happy accident. In college, we started doing a Sunday night sports radio show. From there, it evolved into The Game Haus by the time I was finishing my master’s degree in 2018. 

The Game Haus was helpful in my day-to-day job in terms of writing and teaching. I was able to transfer those skills over as a teacher. My business partners and I were grinding at The Game Haus for a long time. Only one of us had any form of journalism experience so it was a learning experience developing editorial content. 

What’s the story behind The Game Haus?

The sports radio show was ending because my co-host, Dan, was graduating. We realized we didn’t want to do the sports show within the college system and so we started writing sports content. 

It also helped that Dan had been such a good editor for the sports section of our school paper. There were people who decided to write for him because of that and that has been their ethos ever since.

I’m really thankful for the team that has and currently work at The Game Haus. We wouldn’t be where we are if it weren’t for them. The partners are truly remarkable! 

What vision did you have for The Game Haus when you first started and how does it compare to what it is now?

To be honest, the core concept has stayed the same – well-written sports content. We have added more coverage of games like the NFL draft over the years due to the interest and popularity.

The only change that has occurred has been covering Esportsas well. When we decided to include e-sports, there was not a lot of coverage at the time and we wanted to be the first true sports and Esports media company.  We wanted to be a platform where you can go to The Game Haus and get content on MLB, NFL and League of Legends.

Who were the people who have been the most helpful in getting you to where you are today? 

The obvious answer is my parents. They’ve been very supportive since I decided to make this a full-time gig. We weren’t making anything in the beginning and it was great to get that kind of support.

Additionally, I would have to say Joe Ditullio, my business partner and head of the sports section. He has been a great person to inspire me to get through the burnout and drive me to get on his level. In my opinion, he’s the most underrated NFL draft expert out there. I swear he’s finished in the top 10 draft predictions in the past few years and I would love him to get the recognition he deserves.

What has surprised you about starting The Game Haus?

I knew it was going to be hard, but it’s tough especially with COVID and now, a recession. I’ve had to learn the ins and outs of Google, SEO, and even how fast your website loads. It’s difficult but I enjoy every minute of it. 

I think it was also a surprise to see the successes we’ve been able to reach. When we hit half a million users per month, I thought “wow, that’s pretty cool!” It wasn’t even about how much revenue we were bringing in but to see how far we came. We started with 100 views a day and to get to that level was amazing. Another surprise was seeing our work being referenced in other publications and by influencers/YouTubers. They believe in what we’re writing and see us as a credible source.

What’s the one thing you’d tell your younger self? 

I would tell myself to pay better attention to grammar classes – several of our pieces were trash and some of earlier pieces reflect that. I also feel like going to school for marketing or business or journalism would’ve helped me alot more instead of learning as I go.

Be sure to check out The Game Haus and see how your team is doing today.

The post Meet Robert Hanes: From A Few Thousand Users to Half A Million Users Per Month first appeared on Freestar.