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ResellerRatings Profile on Monetization

Posted by Scott on 31st October, 2007 |    3 comments

It’s not always obvious at first glance exactly how a site makes its money.   Here’s how ResellerRatings is monetized:

• shop.resellerratings.com Shopping.com CPC clicks
• Shopping.com Direct-to-merchant Clicks
• Ratings data licensing fees
• Homepage fixed logo 125×50 ads
• Premium Edge merchant subscriptions
• Tacoda behavioral data
• Google Adsense
• Affiliate CPA promotion links

Shop.resellerratings.com CPC Clicks

Nearly every page of our site is designed to funnel users into the shop.resellerratings.com engine.  This is a Shopping.com powered API based part of our site that allows users to compare prices on products at different retailers.  We make money when a user clicks through to a merchant, whether or not they buy anything.

Shopping.com Direct-to-merchant Clicks

If you notice the Deals & Real-time Pricing ad on the right side of our homepage, this is a sample of product placements that link directly to merchant advertisers.  We earn a CPC for every click.  The ad is generated from a database of hand-picked products and all pricing and product data is updated in near-real time using Shopping.com’s API interface.  We have an algorithm that continually tests products and displays the top performers most often.

Ratings Data Licensing Fees

Price comparison engines like Pricerunner.com pay us a licensing fee to republish our store ratings and reviews data on their own sites.  We provide an XML feed, and they do the rest.  We offer two fee options: a higher fee where the licensee can use our data “brand free”, and a lower fee where our logo must be displayed adjacent to any use.

Homepage Fixed Logo 125×50 Ads

There are currently only 4 of these spots available and as such, they sell at a very premium rate.  Merchants appreciate the exposure that these high profile spots offer.  We’ve never had trouble filling the spots.  I think the key is supply and demand: constrict supply and maintain an air of exclusivity in your available ad placements, and you’ll be able to maintain high prices.

Premium Edge Merchant Subscriptions

This is a $59/month package that we offer to any merchant listed at ResellerRatings.  The subscription adds advertising benefits such as a bold listing and a rotating 125×50 logo advertisement on our homepage, as well as email alerts of new reviews, and the ability to preview new customer reviews 48 hours before they go live.  Hundreds of merchants  subscribe to Premium Edge.

Tacoda Behavioral Data

I mentioned Tacoda in a separate post. Tacoda is transparent javascript tracking code that sits on your pages and tags users as being interested in your site’s subject matter. Tacoda then uses that knowledge to serve relevant ads to those same users when they’re visiting other sites, and they share a percentage of the revenue that the data generates.

Google Adsense

We’re using an Adsense Links ad in the footer of all pages, and store review pages have at least 3 Adsense blocks.  Adsense does not monetize our pages anywhere near as well as our shop.resellerratings.com engine, but everything adds up.

Affiliate CPA Promotion Links

If any of our listed stores offers an affiliate program, then we link to that store from their reviews page using the affiliate link.  Nearly all of our homepage deals are also affiliate based posts, though some link to our shop.resellerratings.com site instead.

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Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 4:10 am and is filed under Web Business. If you like this post why not subscribe to my full text RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.