Forum Moderators: martinibuster
At the DLD conference in Munich Monday, Burda CEO Paul-Bernhard Kallen, on a panel with Drummond (Google's Chief Counsel), said publishers wanted transparency and their “fair share.” I asked him, a fair share of what — AdSense? Kallen said yes.
At today’s briefing (at the World Economic Forum in Davos), Arora (Google's President of Sales) said that the company was considering more transparency. I confirmed with Google’s people that this was new. I suspect that they’re not going to promise the possibility and not deliver something.
[businessinsider.com...]
Burda CEO Paul-Bernhard Kallen...said publishers wanted transparency and their “fair share.”
I do?
I'm a publisher and I don't recall asking Kallen, or anyone else, to speak on my behalf.
And if I did ask anyone to speak on my behalf, it wouldn't any of this "fair share" silliness.
FarmBoy
[edited by: farmboy at 9:56 pm (utc) on Jan. 30, 2010]
Maybe I've glossed over the arguments for knowing the revenue splits, but I have no idea how this would benefit publishers.
I agree.
However, if there's someone here who would do something different if he/she learned the actual revenue split percentage, I'm curious what you would do differently and what percentage number would cause you to take that action?
FarmBoy
Maybe I've glossed over the arguments for knowing the revenue splits, but I have no idea how this would benefit publishers.
It would keep Google from making arbitrary changes to the split in secret.
It would keep Google from making arbitrary changes to the split in secret.
How?
If Google told us the split for publishers today is 75%, how would that keep them from changing it to 70% or 80% tomorrow, whether they told us about the change or not?
FarmBoy
but I have no idea how this would benefit publishers
The biggest benefit is that publishers will start looking for alternatives when they finally find out the facts :
The biggest benefit is that publishers will start looking for alternatives when they finally find out the facts :
I don't follow the logic.
If I'm making $X a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, while I sleep, and I'm happy making $X a day, why would I want to mess with that if I found out the revenue split for me is A%?
It seems like the ultimate "throw the baby out with the bath water" or "cut off your nose to spite your face" decision.
FarmBoy
You are happy unless you realize you could be even happier for about the same amount of work.
I know a premium publisher that doesn't even make 70% but maybe they negotiated badly ;)
start looking for alternatives
You should already be keeping an eye out for alternatives, as a matter of normal business smarts.
If there's an alternative out there that you think would be more profitable on your site(s), you should be testing it now.
It would be mildly interesting to know what AdSense's payout split might be, but for me the question that really matters is what will give the best overall return for the available ad space ... and my time.
The answer might be different on different sites.
It would keep Google from making arbitrary changes to the split in secret.
If publishers knew the split and Google decided to make a change--in secret, or in public--there still isn't anything the publisher can do about it.
from farmboy:
However, if there's someone here who would do something different if he/she learned the actual revenue split percentage, I'm curious what you would do differently and what percentage number would cause you to take that action?
I am also hoping someone will post a response detailing how they would take action, or what changes they would make once the revenue split is known. And (like farmboy mentioned) what is the threshold percentage (i.e. 60%, 65%, 70%) one would use to take action?
I guess I could understand the desire to know the revenue split if Google allowed publishers to negotiate, or haggle over it. But this isn't the case.
For the most part, if they paid 150% to publishers they wouldn't even come close to what my income from G is.
I don't care what the % is, I do care about the gross earnings.
.
If Google's split is more generous than other ad networks then those networks may be forced to give better splits to complete.
Granted the revenue split is only one factor a publisher must consider when choosing an ad network but in general more transparency is never a bad thing. Who knows it could end up helping publishers make sure they are getting the best deal.
Google does need to work on "transparency" because they have little of it even if they think otherwise.
it might cause other industry players to increase their revshare percentages.
but, i think that the biggest benefit, is that it will make google less likely to decrease the payout in the future. it would be much more difficult to lower the revshare percentage when that information is public than it would if they just turn a dial on their black box (which is how it operates now).
the transparency also may serve to stave off regulators from stepping in which could slow down future innovation and/or create additional expenses which could be passed on to publishers in the form of lower revshare.
although an individual publisher might not directly benefit from such disclosures, i think we should promote and applaud these moves that google is making toward furthering their openness.
I wish my content development, SEO, Link development, PR, Customer service etc etc can also be done while I asleep.
This additional information can help webmasters make a better estimate of a site's advertising potential.
The same things I'm already doing.
Unless the information was site-specific, or better yet, channel- or ad-specific, it would be pretty worthless. If it were at least site-specific, or even more granular, it would give me additional information in deciding whether a particular niche or topic is simply not going to be profitable, or whether there's earning potential that I'm not realizing. If I have a low-traffic site that gets a 70% share and a high-traffic site that gets a 40% share, that gives me actionable information. But if it's simply something like "50% for my entire AdSense account," it would tell me little or nothing of any value.
But, given that the competitive ad filter, ad review center, category filters, and other account shtuff is all account-wide and not site-specific, I'm not optimistic that G would reveal site-specific revenue splits anyway.
Yeah right.
For example, if GG is keeping 90% of the monies I would likely focus more on capturing the advertising dollars directly.
All these people who are not interested in the proportion they are getting from Google?
Yeah right.
I am not interested in the proportion. I am happy with what I get at the end of each month. I've no idea if it is 1% or 99% proportion.
Sure I would like to earn more, but that's life. If I want more, i'll make more sites, or add more content etc.
