Skimlinks Q&A: capitalising on content

As publishers look for new ways to monetise their content, Newsline quizzed Skimlinks’ CEO Alicia Navarro on new research examining the value of what she terms ‘comtent’ – or commerce-related content.

Why did you conduct this research?

The biggest question publishers face at the moment is how to maintain their integrity by creating valuable content for their audience whilst also being able to monetise and run an efficient business model. While there’s no single magic solution, many prominent publishers are turning to ‘comtent’ – commerce-related content.

There are many different types of articles that fall under the comtent umbrella, ranging from deals & sales to image galleries and top 10 listicles. We wanted to carry out this study so that publishers could develop their monetisation strategies armed with a nuanced understanding of the value and growing potential of the varying types of comtent that are available to them.

In order to do this, we selected the top 2,200 pages based on revenue across our publisher network over a 15 month period, excluding non-editorial content from websites and mobile apps solely dedicated to vouchers and coupons.

What are the key findings?

We found that commerce-related content has the potential to drive continued revenue over a significant amount of time. 180 days after publishing, comtent still drives affiliated clicks and commissions. Deals and sales (38%) and product reviews (25%) are the most common types of comtent created. Despite the popularity of deals and sales, product reviews and top ten lists drive, on average, more revenue to publishers. We talk a lot about the rise of mobile but when it comes to generating revenues across different devices, computers (unsurprisingly) dominate with 74% of conversions coming from this device. Tablet and mobile are tied for second place, with 13% each.

What does this mean for publishers interested in native content?

What’s remarkable is that no matter what type of comtent it is, content can consistently drive affiliated clicks and revenue for publishers over an extended period of time. The findings essentially challenge the notion that publishers need to constantly create new content to stay relevant.

For instance, deals and sales and buying guides see jumps in the number of affiliated clicks at around five months, a full 150 days after release we can only speculate as to why this is the case, but continuing to refresh published commerce-related content with updated products and links helps this trend.

A good example of a publication taking full advantage of its ‘evergreen’ content is online lifestyle magazine, Gear Patrol. Using beautiful original imagery to power comtent creation, Gear Patrol regularly refreshes its in-depth buying guides with new product links and updated content to boost performance over time.

Since adopting this strategy, the publication has seen a 22% increase in conversion rates and 92% growth in overall affiliate revenue, not to mention the amount of time and resources saved by not having to continually create brand new content.

It may look slightly odd to see deals and sales content bringing revenue across such an extended period of time, since it is usually identified as being extremely timely. However, this is typically the case when it comes to content-heavy publishers, such as Gizmodo and LifeHacker.

Highly curated and updated pieces of comtent that get refreshed to highlight new deals tend to stay relevant for a much longer time than more time-constrained coupons or voucher codes churned by coupon sites. Product reviews follow a similar pattern, seeing significant commission spikes after the first 180 days of being published. These reviews tend to be very specific and detailed, hence why they remain relevant for a longer amount of time.

What (if any) suspicions did this confirm?

We tend to think that nature of the internet doesn’t typically reward what’s not immediate and real-time, but in fact high quality comtent sticks around for a long time continuing to drive revenue to publishers, which was more surprising.

Top tens and listicles, the beloved thematic form of writing that uses lists as its basic structure, captures the highest number of clicks per page, with ‘get the look’ (interior design, fashion and lifestyle articles) and deals and sales following close behind in second and third place.

This isn’t particularly surprising given their notoriety for sensationalist or ‘clickbait’ headlines to encourage clicks and sharing. Desktop computers are still the preferred device used to make purchases online.

With the disconnect in the user experience on mobile and tablet devices from a publisher’s site to a merchant’s site, it’s not too surprising that consumers still prefer to make purchases from their desktops.

What conclusions should publishers take away from the research?

A great supplement to traditional forms of advertising, high quality, relevant comtent is a viable business model that rewards publishers for the online sales they drive to retailers. With nearly 90% of consumers researching products online before committing to a purchase (often turning to their favourite publishers for advice), comtent isn’t just a gimmick – it’s the future of editorial.

This by no means signifies that publishers should compromise on their editorial integrity – to the contrary, as the Value of Comtent Study demonstrates, striking the balance between maintaining one’s distinct editorial voice and creating engaging and honest content about products and brands your readers are interested in is what drives the most value and revenue over time.