I received an email the other day inviting me to spend some time on a panel at a conference discussing the impact that Zero Click has had on the domain monetisation industry. It should be said that I like data…..touchy feely stuff is all well and good but getting a return from your domain investments is all about getting dirty in the numbers.
First of all….what is zero-click? Zero-click advertising networks bid in real-time to get access to traffic. In the case of ParkLogic, there may be a dozen or more companies bidding for each piece of traffic every hundred milliseconds or so. The winning bid must outbid every other bidder AND also the best traditional parking solution to receive the traffic. This is all good news for domain investors.
So after receiving the email about the conference I decided to do a dumpster dive into the data and out popped the following chart about the impact Zero Click advertising networks have had on domain monetisation. The data goes from 1 November 2017 to 25 July 2018. I should say that we deal with many traditional parking solutions and zero-click companies and the numbers are aggregate of all of these.
The chart comprises of three lines with two trend lines on the orange and grey series. The orange line represents the percentage of revenue that is now going to zero click companies and uses the right-hand axis. The trend is clear….it’s headed upwards.
The grey line uses the left-hand axis and is the percentage being paid by zero-click companies compared to traditional Google parking solutions. What this is really saying is that zero-click companies are paying massively more than Google for traffic and the trend is continuing upwards.
The blue line uses the right-hand axis and is the amount of traffic being purchased by zero-click solutions. After a downward trend from the beginning of the year until March zero-click has really stabilized at around three to four percent of the overall traffic volume.
What this suggests is that zero-click is paying out massively on a small amount of the traffic. Another possibility is that zero-click is picking out all the good traffic and leaving the rest behind. If the orange and grey trendlines are any indication, then I’m OK with that.
Does this mean that traditional Google based monetisation solutions are dead in the water? Heck no! There’s over ninety-five percent of the traffic still seeking a way to be monetised and Google has the breadth of advertisers to find a home for it. Traditional parking is still an invaluable part of the overall monetisation mix.
What is clear is that zero-click is a force to be reckoned with. More and more of the revenue being generated is going to zero-click solutions….so if you don’t have these in your revenue mix then you’re missing out big time.
Let me state it plainly. If you’ve been experiencing a decline in your traffic earnings then do something about it rather than leaving everything where it is. If you plan on doing nothing then please send me a message as we have customers that would love to purchase your portfolio based on your numbers. :-)