4 ms·

> This is smart monetization and gives more bucks than this affiliate hack. Do you have any numbers on that matter?

greenspot 10y ago
Just a feeling. It's really very hard to get major brands like Nike as advertisers on board. Why: they want a perfect environment. A positive one and a premium brand which fits to them and a great audience. And not to forget a HUGE reach. Once you have all of these PLUS contacts to the right media agencies then you get good deals based on CPM. The less you as a publisher can offer the more you end with CPC or even crappy CPA deals where you never know if the intermediate evades your commissions. Just look around, usually advertisers pair themselves with publishers with a similar brand awareness and quality. Eg Nike or BMW won't advertise on Reddit or Facebbok because there would be a too strong asymmetry between advertisers' and publishers' brands. Nike and BMW would rather place and position themselves to eg the next James Bond movie from Sony (=> similar brand perception). Reddit is the typical publisher that is avoided by a lot of major advertisers. The brand and the audience is maybe too heterogenous and inconsistent. While a sub like Photshopbattles might be positive and funny many other subs like Gonewild (which is huge btw) give Reddit a mixed perception. However, doing a deal with Viglink shows that they must have tried everything before (to get deals with major brands) but finally resigned and go now the affiliate path. There is one good thing about affiliate marketing though: ad blockers do not harm your business.
- nsgi 10y ago
  > There is one good thing about affiliate marketing though: ad blockers do not harm your business. They can if you use something like Viglink. That's another reason to roll your own solution. Really don't understand why they decided to go through them just to avoid a bit of regex.
  - billmalarky 10y ago
    Why roll your own first when you can use an out of box solution to see if the monetization is a good strategy before investing engineer time into it? If it's a good fit they can always roll their own later. Hell, they may be rolling their own right now but wanted to start capturing the additional revenue at a lower margin immediately. >just to avoid a bit of regex I've never heard of Viglink and am too lazy to google, but I'd wager the real value provided by the company isn't adding affiliate codes, but rather strong analytics features allowing you to optimize revenue across different affiliates etc.
    - AznHisoka 10y ago
      It's the regex and the fact you can partner with any retailer automatically without individually applying to all of their affiliate programs. Reddit surely surely are implementing an in house solution (or maybe I'm giving their management too much credit)
  - Twirrim 10y ago
    Good enough is often good enough. Why shove non-trivial amounts of engineering effort into it when you can take advantage of a service? If there's enough money in it then maybe it would be justifiable to put engineering effort into it themselves. In the mean time "free money" for minimal effort.
    - conceit 10y ago
      > Why shove non-trivial amounts of engineering effort into it because it's more fun
      - unlinker 10y ago
        They can not afford it.
      - Twirrim 10y ago
        > because it's more fun Seriously? You think that's a good criteria to judge it on?

Just a feeling. It's really very hard to get major brands like Nike as advertisers on board. Why: they want a perfect environment. A positive one and a premium brand which fits to them and a great audience. And not to forget a HUGE reach. Once you have all of these PLUS contacts to the right media agencies then you get good deals based on CPM. The less you as a publisher can offer the more you end with CPC or even crappy CPA deals where you never know if the intermediate evades your commissions. Just look around, usually advertisers pair themselves with publishers with a similar brand awareness and quality. Eg Nike or BMW won't advertise on Reddit or Facebbok because there would be a too strong asymmetry between advertisers' and publishers' brands. Nike and BMW would rather place and position themselves to eg the next James Bond movie from Sony (=> similar brand perception). Reddit is the typical publisher that is avoided by a lot of major advertisers. The brand and the audience is maybe too heterogenous and inconsistent. While a sub like Photshopbattles might be positive and funny many other subs like Gonewild (which is huge btw) give Reddit a mixed perception. However, doing a deal with Viglink shows that they must have tried everything before (to get deals with major brands) but finally resigned and go now the affiliate path. There is one good thing about affiliate marketing though: ad blockers do not harm your business.

nsgi 10y ago
> There is one good thing about affiliate marketing though: ad blockers do not harm your business. They can if you use something like Viglink. That's another reason to roll your own solution. Really don't understand why they decided to go through them just to avoid a bit of regex.
- billmalarky 10y ago
  Why roll your own first when you can use an out of box solution to see if the monetization is a good strategy before investing engineer time into it? If it's a good fit they can always roll their own later. Hell, they may be rolling their own right now but wanted to start capturing the additional revenue at a lower margin immediately. >just to avoid a bit of regex I've never heard of Viglink and am too lazy to google, but I'd wager the real value provided by the company isn't adding affiliate codes, but rather strong analytics features allowing you to optimize revenue across different affiliates etc.
  - AznHisoka 10y ago
    It's the regex and the fact you can partner with any retailer automatically without individually applying to all of their affiliate programs. Reddit surely surely are implementing an in house solution (or maybe I'm giving their management too much credit)
- Twirrim 10y ago
  Good enough is often good enough. Why shove non-trivial amounts of engineering effort into it when you can take advantage of a service? If there's enough money in it then maybe it would be justifiable to put engineering effort into it themselves. In the mean time "free money" for minimal effort.
  - conceit 10y ago
    > Why shove non-trivial amounts of engineering effort into it because it's more fun
    - unlinker 10y ago
      They can not afford it.
    - Twirrim 10y ago
      > because it's more fun Seriously? You think that's a good criteria to judge it on?