Non-English speaking countries in general are not “hot.”
These countries make up a large portion of internet traffic
but historically have generated about as much interest from
advertisers as a “player” would on wedding rings. For sites
with large amounts of international traffic, making money on
it has been anything but easy. Several years ago,
international traffic commanded 1/10 to 1/20 the rates for
US traffic. Today, while not quite even, the value hovers at
1/5 to even 1/3 of US traffic. Those seeing the biggest
impact are ad networks that have upwards of 50% of their
total impressions coming from non-English speaking
countries.
Many ad networks only accept
traffic from US, something that speaks directly to the
challenge of effectively monetizing non-US traffic. If one
sends traffic from one of those countries, they won’t get
paid. Effectively dealing with international traffic
requires, on the part of these ad networks, at the very least
generally IP tracking and/or sophisticated technology to do
it well. Launching ads costs money; if advertisers only pay
for US traffic, these networks have no incentive to launch
an ad. None of which puts publishers in a good position, as
they either have to have their own technology to determine
user location or accept that only a percentage of their
traffic will earn them money. Often technologies conflict,
generating leakage on traffic or simply cost too much to
justify using best-in-class solutions.
Some advertisers and even ad networks can pay
for international traffic. Combined, these advertisers have
helped reduce that gap making international traffic almost a
profitable venture for many companies. Most publishers and
ad networks that do attempt to monetize international
traffic, manage to sell only a small percentage at premium
rates. This leaves room for individual companies that focus
on international traffic monetization to buy large campaigns
at lower rates, often on CPA. The companies behind these
campaigns act similarly to certain real estate development
companies in which they purchase home sites in bulk from the
main developer of a large residential community and then
work on finding buyers for the individual lots. They provide
needed capital and a certain return for the main developer
and their strong, specialized sales force allows them to
sell off the land they’ve already bought. The same holds
true for certain international campaigns – they help the
networks and sites with guaranteed money, while still able
to make their money in the arbitrage. As more and more of
these advertisers enter the market, prices as a whole
increase, making it a win for traffic owners.
Advertisers that desire only
US traffic also face issues surrounding non-English speaking
traffic. Many often relied on the traffic provider to do the
screening only to realize they paid for a fair amount of
non-US traffic. Good examples are the email address and zip
code only offers. As almost all of these sites make money on
arbitrage – acting as a funnel for traffic to other offers –
they can only purchase traffic that their advertisers want,
and that is US traffic. Some front-end programming can help
determine the validity of the data entered so that they
don’t have to pay for names that won’t make them money.
Without good software on their end though, they could easily
open up shop and pay for conversions from anywhere; the
overall performance of a site would dictate its value, their
traffic mix being a key component, but without that country
data, they cannot isolate the country dynamic.
Fortunately, more and more solutions for making
money on international traffic exist; similarly, solutions
for detecting international traffic also have become more
attainable. Google’s AdSense alone went from offering nine
languages in February to 41 now. Internet usage and other
macro trends also continue to play a positive impact. We are
well on our way to having an internet where all countries
are equal, and those of us with traffic will have scalable
options for monetizing it all without the current divide.
Jay Weintraub
