Top 10 Tech Web Tips

Partnering with a Web Network Might Cost You Revenue, Profits and Metrics

This week I had an eye opening experience.  I met a very successful website owner and internet personality that is not being compensated well for their work or content.  I won’t name names or provide URLs for this example as I myself am still trying to understand what has gone wrong with this specific business model.

I can take a look at consumer products, site unseen sometimes and spot the flaw.  Such as in a wireless home security product from ademco.  Having worked in intelligence, I can tell you that the easy way to defeat the system is by jamming the signal.  However, with the internet, things are not always as obvious.

The thing about this broken business is that the site has very very high numbers in terms of visitors and subscribers.  The problem is that the owner of the site does not own their revenue stream.  They own the site, but they work through a network that sells ads for them along with other site owners.  That network then pays the website owner a monthly contract amount for being part of the network.

Fixed pay for adjustable revenue

That may sound like security to web owners that do not want to ride an advertising and revenue roller coaster, but consider what happens when you start off small and your site gets big.  When the site blows up with fame, you do not receive the rewards.  You are still locked down at the fixed contract rate from the days when you were a small nobody.

So the problem becomes what to do when you are a content producer that is being underpaid?

The obvious answer is to renegotiate or jump ship.

That’s not an easy decision to make under the best circumstances and in this case even tougher.  The company managing the ads and the revenue also manage and hold the metrics of the site performance.  They essentially are holding the purse strings and the scale measuring the gold dust.  To jump ship or renegotiate, or just keep your accountants honest, website owners and content producers have to have access to and control over their metrics.

Anything less than that and you are hamstrung when it comes time to make a decision.  In this case the situation is one where the content producer, relies on them for salary, for promotion of their site, for ad sales, and metrics.  When things need to be promoted more heavily, support is not there.  When earnings are higher, bigger compensation is not there.  When ad sales slip, the sales team is not responsible, and in many cases other content producers and their needs dictate and drive when things happen at a network level, leaving the content producer of my case out of the loop.

It goes to show that when you trade security for control, you may benefit in the short term but in the long term its very difficult to get the control back and that in turn makes security a bit of a myth.  If a network leverages your site to push other sites, that does not help you.  In fact, if the network can not maximize results on your site, they are probably failing to do so on other sites in the network and that is bad for business and will probably be the unraveling of the network ultimately and the end of nice safe checks.

My advice, keep your own controls, keep your metrics, know your risk in reality for what it is and manage it.  Don’t hide behind the skirts of a network that doesn’t really protect you at all.