Advertising in RSS Feeds

Welcome to Another article on Advertising in RSS Feeds
By S. Housley

As publishers have moved towards monetizing RSS feeds, their
have been vibrant discussions as to whether advertisements
in feeds are viable or whether they will drive subscribers
away. At the end of the day while it appears that many are
discussing the philosophical approaches to ads in RSS feeds
few are taking the time to examine the options available for
inserting advertisements in feeds. Ultimately the
advertisements served are going to determine the success of
RSS as an advertising medium. The ads served must be related
to the content contained in the feed. If the RSS feed
contains quality content, the ads are relevant, and the
volume of ads is in balance with the volume of content
served, advertising in RSS feeds will succeed. Take a closer
look at some of the ad serving options currently available
for RSS feeds.


Review of Current OptionsGoogle AdSense for Feeds
Google's AdSense for Feeds offers contextually targeted
advertisements, with a wide selection of advertisers. Google
chooses not to divulge the percentage of revenue that is
shared with the publisher, so it is difficult if not
impossible to predict monthly revenue. The current Google
AdSense system for feeds is tied to blogs and does not
appear to be overly flexible.
http://www.google.com/adsense

Pheedo
Pheedo displays categorized advertisements rather than
contextual advertisements. The upside to this is that
Pheedo's advertisements can be used in conjunction with
Google AdSense or AdSense for feeds without violating
Google's contract. Pheedo works with the publisher to serve
advertisements from similar or related categories associated
with the feeds contents.

Pheedo's system allows for advanced ad filtering, giving
publishers control over keyword ad filtering, specific ad
filtering or url filtering. Pheedo's system also allows
publishers to sell ads to existing advertisers whom they
already have a relationship. The revenue split is 50% and
feeds can be a sponsored flat rate advertisement or a
pay-per-click advertisement, where the publisher is only
paid if the advertisement is clicked.
http://www.pheedo.com

Kanoodle for Feeds
Kanoodles systems for providing advertisements for feeds is
similar to Google's but they do not have the breadth of
advertisers that Google boasts. Advertisements are served
based on topics, not to keywords. Kanoodle shares 50% of the
revenue generated from the advertisements with the publisher
serving the ad.
http://www.kanoodle.com


Evaluating Options
When evaluating feed ad serving solutions consider the
following:


1. Ad Relevance
In order to generate revenue from RSS advertisements or for
an advertising campaign to succeed using RSS as a channel.
It is absolutely critical that the advertisements served in
the feed contain related content, the more related the
content the higher the likelihood that the advertisements
will be of interest to the reader and clicked. Also the
closer the content relates to the feeds theme the higher the
likelihood the reader will have genuine interest in the
product or service being advertised.


2. Ad Ratio
Publishers need to retain control over the frequency of
advertisements. Readers will become frustrated with feeds
that are heavily laden with advertisements and genuine
content. The advertiser is happy as they are reaching a
targeted audience the publisher is happy because their
advertisement is being clicked and generating revenue.

3. Clearly Denoted as Ads
The debate over editorial control and advertisements rage
on. It is generally considered proper net etiquette for
publishers to clearly mark advertisements to distinguish
them from editorial web content. When selecting a RSS
advertising partner consider the context in which the
advertisements are displayed. Does it blend with the feed or
site, while still being clearly marked sponsored material?
Or does the content blend so well that it appear as a
product or service endorsement from the publisher?
Credibility and reputation online matter, and the
segregation of advertisements and ensuring they are properly
denoted as such will go a long way to enhance credibility
with readers.

Clearly as RSS increases in popularity publishers are
looking for ways to monetize their content. RSS in
advertising is a logical step, and striking a balance
between quality, consistent content and occasional related
advertisements will lead to the success of advertising in
RSS feeds. If the balance is not found, publishers may be
forced to move to a subscription RSS feed model.


About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com
an RSS component for developers.