I think there are numerous of schools of thought regarding what should be done with mobile traffic in order to make money from it:
- sell all traffic redirected to one cam/porn/dating and "let them worry about how to convert it" as one user wrote.
- redirect to affiliate campaign
- create a sub domain or w/l
- 100% premium subscription service
- 100% ad funded model
- Premium/Ad funded model
- ignore it and pretend that nobody looks at porn on their mobile nor is there money to be made from it
Each one seems to have its benefits and pitfalls, working through them one by one my thoughts, for what its worth, are:
1. sell all traffic for a pre defined amount.
The clear upside is the fixed amount paid from the buyer and peace of mind. The downside. Lets say the traffic has a percentage coming from the EU and a percentage from the US - if a buyer whose biz is predominantly US based, they may be buying it even though they may not have operator "one -click"/sms/premium rate call-for-code billing and focusing mainly on converting the US stuff. In which case the price they will pay overall may be less to reflect the fact they have to take the convertible with the not so convertible. Ultimately you might not be getting paid the maximum amount for every user. The answer? As sexgoesmobile mentioned, you could look to split your traffic geographically and sell it to someone who can convert it the best for the territory. Another answer would be to see my note at the bottom of this post for another alternative.
To add further to this, we have always been told from our advertisers that traffic that has operator/sms billing converts 10X better than CC billing but that the lifetime value was half. Therefore it was worked out that approximately you were 5X better off for having operator billed traffic. Imagine you are selling that kind of traffic to someone who only wants to bill it with CC and you can see how much more valuable that traffic is to someone if you can find the right buyer.
2. Redirect to an affiliate campaign
As in the first point, if you have traffic in a territory that can be converted with a one or two step click process in stead of CC billing then it is important to find an affiliate program with the best billing option for your traffic profile.
3. create a sub domain or w/l
Any of the 3 above mentioned versions of this solution can work depending on the goals of the web master.Which one to choose probably comes down to how you have acquired you traffic originally.
- If you currently own a 100% premium web product but are seeing a percentage of it is coming from a hand-held device (perhaps existing paid members or direct nav) then this user is expecting to pay for their content and a w/l or sub domain offering just that could be a profitable way forward.
- If you have traffic coming expecting free content perhaps via search or referral then you can choose between the ad funded or part ad/part premium model. Speaking honestly, our experience has shown that it is difficult to turn a profit on a 100% ad funded model alone and that for the site to make the most of its traffic, you should be offering a premium element. A number of sites offer this with varying lengths of free content (i have seen 20 min vids being given away which seems slightly pointless if you are trying to sell something of your own) but the most effective of our partners find that short free vids that give a taste of the quality to be found in the premium section work best.
Clearly you will not convert all of the users landing on your site so this is where the ad model kicks in, enabling you to make money from the users who don't convert - perhaps that is because they never will or perhaps you don't have a suitable or easy billing solution for them in their given territory. An ad gives them the option to gain the quality of content they want, and you the revenue for bridging the gap. Note that our publishers see little or no drop off on their own subscriptions for these exact reasons.
One final way for a site owner to make money from mobile is now available and could provide the gateway to web masters realising the value of mobilizing their traffic.
As an ad network, we serve up ads the world over on sites optimized for mobile devices and you can carry our ads and make money from them - how much depends on a number of variables including handset and location to name a couple. This is not a new or original concept and is effective and we are not the only network out there doing it well.
However if you dont have a site of your own but have traffic you can do one of the above mentioned methods but maybe it makes little or no money. Maybe your traffic levels are comparably small and/or that a 1:500 or worse conversion means the work is not worth the return.
The point is we can serve an ad to a phone in pretty much every location across the globe which means we can make money on every single user seeking adult content from a hand held device.
If you don't have a site it doesn't matter as you redirect every user to us and we will, in turn, redirect each individual user to a paying advertiser who is best positioned to convert him/her given the aforementioned variables. We can only do this as we have a large enough network of advertisers to cope with the variety of traffic available.
anyway just some musings
