Selling Content, Not Just Ads By James Maguire
July 16, 2004
Metacritic.com is that most unlikely of e-commerce business: a small site that turns a profit by offering content instead of selling items.
Launched in 2001 by three ex-lawyers, Metacritic aggregates the opinions of many leading film, music and video game critics into one site. If you're wondering what reviewers thought about Spiderman 2, the latest X-Box game or the newest Beastie Boys CD, Metacritic will tell you.
The site links to reviews from publications like the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times, displaying the key sentence that Metacritic's editors feel sums up the critic's opinion. Editors then average leading critics' opinions into one numerical score, using its own formula -- resulting in a kind of "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" collective review.
Metacritic has become something of a cult favorite, earning Webby awards and a listing in Time magazine's "50 coolest sites" list.
Thumbs Up for Revenue Traditionally, content sites have relied heavily on advertising revenue, yet "advertising right now is the least of our income," says Metacritic editor and co-founder Marc Doyle.
Its leading revenue source is from licensing its content. The site, for example, just licensed access to its film information to HomeScreen, an Australian version of Netflix.
Metacritic relies on affiliate referrals and content feeds in addition to ads.
"Whenever you look up one of their DVDs to rent it, you see all the quotes and links" gathered by Metacritic, Doyle says. Metacritic has a similar deal with Vindigo, a data provider for handheld devices.
Metacritic charges a monthly fee to its clients, who choose what sort of data they want: movie, game or music reviews; major city reviews or small independent papers like the LA Weekly or The Onion. Metacritic sends data using an XML feed or via FTP. Data can be updated "daily, hourly weekly -- whatever they want," Doyle says.
Its second revenue source is linking to retailers who sell the DVDs or CDs reviewed on Metacritic's site. In essence, it's an advanced affiliate program.
A Metacritic page with a review of the newest video game links to that product's page on Pricegrabber or Amazon. "We get a cut of those purchases," Doyle says.
• Focus on driving internal page traffic • Use Google's stats • Keep design centered around call-to-action
For example, a CD review will contain an embedded Pricegrabber ad announcing, "Buy this CD for the lowest price on the Web! Compare prices & stores now!"
Advertising is Metacritic's third revenue stream. Its ad revenue flows from two sources. First, "we're signed up with a bunch of different ad networks," Doyle says. Alternately, the site hosts specific ad campaigns -- a higher paying arrangement. Last month, for example, its entire ad inventory was dedicated to a video game maker called Rockstar Games.
The site's ad network is administered by the Alliance Network Group, based in San Francisco. Before Metacritic hooked up with Alliance, it tried a number of ad strategies, including Google ads. But the Google ads "weren't lucrative enough," Doyle says.
Entertaining Users Advertising will likely remain only a small part of the site's income. Though Metacritic has multiple revenue streams, the site's success still depends chiefly on one factor, Doyle notes: the user experience. Since its surfers only visit for recreational purposes, the site has to be fun, which limits the amount of advertising its owners feel inclined to accept.
"We're never going to use any pop-ups or any other creative, annoying ads," Doyle says. "We hate them ourselves, and we'd rather not make a couple hundred more bucks a month to annoy people." Long-term, it would harm traffic, he believes.
"We never want to sacrifice the content experience."
James Maguire is a contributor to eCommerce-Guide.com. His column appears every Friday.
Do you have a comment or question about this
article or other e-commerce topics in general?
Speak out in the SmallBusinessComputing.com E-Commerce Forum.
Join the discussion today!
Tools:
Add ecommerce-guide.com to your favorites Add ecommerce-guide.com to your browser search box IE 7 | Firefox 2.0 | Firefox 1.5.xReceive news via our XML/RSS feed
IE 7
Firefox 2.0
