Thoughts.01 — Mulling Monetization
I am starting to write up some long-coffee-break length tech&business thought exercises simply to get more writing onto the internet rather than just in real life. More shallow dives into other concepts to come soon.
Money Talks
I have been thinking about traffic-based monetization strategies lately, both for current projects and future products I would love to make happen. While I am not quite ready to take the wraps off of my own work, I can use a more well known business to make the same points.
I have been actively contributing to Unsplash (a free photography service) for almost a year now, so I have some understanding of how the platform operates. The site, as far as I know (which is not far), has not been ‘monetized’ as of yet. Even though I will talk about it specifically, Unsplash should make a decent model for any service that depends on contributed content (especially given that they have significant traffic). The service they provide is great — free HQ photos for any use — but there needs to be money in it. I am not saying this as a contributor, I honestly think they have the opportunity to jump out ahead of competitors in this space and capture really explosive growth through creative monetization strategy. I realize Unsplash is operating with a growth>* mindset at this point, which is why now might be a perfect time to implement revenue generation. Having a known revenue stream will legitimize the company and provide peace of mind for skeptical contributors.
Many sites that rely on user contribution promote ease-of-use and quality content. Early contributions lead to shares which generate traffic, which leads to more contributions. In a perfect world this cycle is self-reinforcing. Ideally the service should be sticky; you need to create recurring value for contributors, visitors, and even financial supporters. Are Facebook/Twitter/Instagram mammoths because of their capabilities? Of course not, their userbase holds the real value. Keep your community happy and engaged. And one way to do that is by adding money into the equation.
I’m sure that the Unsplash team has thought of all these strategies and many more. I don’t know what they are planning, but it will be interesting to see what gets implemented.
I like to start topics by thinking about what you are trying to get as a return from the action. The goals for a monetization strategy are simple:
- The strategy has to generate enough revenue to allow the business to grow
- The strategy has to incentivize ever-higher quality uploads
- The strategy should be flexible enough to change in a dynamic space
- The strategy should be relatively simple and understood by users
- Happy users ( → happy work-life!)
$ from Downloads
Subscription
Something as a Service. In this case I can picture having a tier of professional photographers that are approached/apply to join in a profit sharing split. It is a similar situation as right here on Medium. ‘Locked’ pictures that can be seen, but not used without a sub. This wouldn’t have to be very expensive, probably in the $10–20 range. I consider this a fairly boring revenue model and it could hinder the freedom that the site has worked hard to promote.
Example Implementation
Have both free and premium photos appear on the sites main feeds (new / trending) while allowing search to filter by premium | free | all. Have API access be a significant additional charge for premium photos.
Profit sharing to each photog:
total monthly subscription earnings * (single photographer monthly downloads / all monthly downloads) * magic-sharing-ratio = Monthly payout
One positive is that contributors would be highly incentivized to produce high quality work as they compete with others for their slice of the total download pie.
Per Photo/set
- Give users the option to lock individual photos. Set a flat price for the site or let the photographer choose. Split profits with the photographer. (Shutterstock, most other platforms.) Please don’t do this.
- Allow photographers to post photo sets for purchase. Require one free image that would act as an ad for the set (and itself adding value to the site). Similarly themed photo sets would be very useful to designers and people developing templates. Right now the Unsplash submission process makes it difficult (on purpose) to bulk upload, so you do not see many 3+ photo sets. Money-wise sets could be one-time purchased outright or licensed with a profit split. I think this could implemented with minimal impact to the average users experience. I personally like this idea and can see it working.
$ from Views
Advertising
There is no dismissing that simply placing ads on a popular service is one of the quickest ways to gain revenue. It is not perfect though — by default they do not play nice with API access or adblockers. Worse yet, with a minimal looking site it can be difficult to introduce ads that do not take away from the user experience. Ads are often successfully used in conjunction with the aforementioned subscription model. (Youtube / Youtube Red) Apart from buying a subscription, users who want to hide ads could be incentivized to perform community-beneficial activities like tagging photos, curating detailed photo collections, referring friends, or contributing photos. This type of activity can even lead normal users to become more loyal than without ads being present.
Usage
The ads themselves could take many forms. Unsplash photos are all tagged and many are found through search, so the value of ad targeting will be high. A few examples of the many possible options:
- Have every 20th or so image of the new/trending feed be an ad-market ad. (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest…)
- Have brands pay to promote specific photos within Unsplash. ← Best option.
- Show an ad before allowing a download. Allows for profit-sharing. ( adf.ly or short.est style only nicer and more targeted)
- Sell sponsored collections to be prominently featured.
Profit sharing to each photog:
Ranging from none to a straight percentage from the pre-download ad.
Affiliate Marketing
Help to sell products or trips that relate to photos. This could be a nice supplementary revenue stream, but probably not something that would sustain a business on its own.
Usage
I imagine using image recognition to scan an image, identify items present and then link those items to purchase sources. While technically complex behind the scenes, it could be implemented in a very non-intrusive way and actually be seen as a beneficial feature to many. (ex. clicking the info button could bring up cards with information on products within the picture.)
Profit sharing to each photog:
[sum of total monthly affiliate revenue generated per picture ] * magic-sharing-ratio = Monthly payout
The photographer gets a percentage of the sales that he/she drives. This would be a win-win-win for businesses, photographers, and consumers. It would also incentivize contributors to add high quality images for all sorts of different products.
Aside: Imagine the value in a full ‘Unsplash for products’ site that specializes in free, beautiful product images. Many companies already provide free media resources, so it would be reasonable to estimate that at least a few companies would directly join in. It could start small, just an interface into Unsplash even. I would help build that. Anyone interested? ;)
Micropayments
A bit ahead of its primetime viability, but I can see micropayments becoming the future of large scale platforms. Have users link a payment source (likely a crypto currency such as Ethereum) to their accounts on registration. List different costs associated with browsing photos, downloading, and API use. Users pay trivial amounts (<$0.01) that add up to actual profits across scale. Show copious ads to those who do not register. This is my favorite strategy, though the least realistic, revisit in a few years, eh?
Usage
Nothing would have to look different than it does today. Add in a payments page that tracks charges.
Unsplash had 4,552,777,091 views last month. If each view cost just $0.0005 they would have made over $2M.
Profit sharing to photog: Straight percentage from each micropayment received from a user interaction.
$ from Referrals
Unsplash could take a page from its parent’s playbook (Crew) and implement a full system in which photographers are linked to brands for gigs. Take a percentage off the top, no harm no foul. A bit interaction heavy with the need for vetting both companies and photographers.
For a lighter touch, they could let photographers add a ‘book-me’ button to their profiles and maybe even take a small finders fee. Essentially this button would be affiliate marketing for their own community members. I think the button should be limited only to people that have made quality contributions and should require the upload of a new photo every month to prove photographer availability. (It would also make the service more sticky!) Do this — some form of this should be implemented no matter what else happens IMO.
What I would do
I would go all in on advertising. Not google ad-market stuff though. Advertise through negotiated deals with brands. Create engaging experiences that will show up through search, collections and even API calls. Good ads shouldn’t be flashy, don’t make them something adblock hides. People come to Unsplash for high quality photography, so let quality work do its own advertising for brands. Have the ads be submitted by the photographers that shot the images. Keep the promotion minimal; for example add a simple ‘Learn more’ text link in the bottom corner of the image (or wherever data shows works best).
People are already using the Unsplash API across the web. A single code push could essentially turn all those apps into brand ambassadors for advertisement partners, without sacrificing quality! That has to be worth something. :)
TL;DR — Be Google. If you hold the power of user views, make advertisers come to you and charge them handsomely for it.
Options I missed? Comments? I encourage discussion/criticism!
