VoresVilla has been part of the Passendo customer base since the testing started. They can’t understand how other publishers fail to make money on their newsletters. We had a talk about the benefits of using an adserver that is specialised for both e-mail and display with Digital Director Allan Schou from VoresVilla. This article will tell you some of their secrets and give you 5 reasons why publishers should choose Passendo to monetise their newsletters.
About VoresVilla
VoresVilla is a Danish niche based printed magazine that is published and distributed six times a year to more than a million households in Denmark. Their content revolves around the house and garden and their target group is house owners.
In 2014 they started their digital journey but quickly realised that competing on search terms would be an impossible and expensive road to venture down with a long list of categories and keywords. Therefore they made the decision to keep their website as a secondary presence rather than a primary driver of income. Instead they focused on e-mail as their main source of online revenue. They had already built a sound base of subscribers of their newsletter through their magazine.
“By sending e-mails we are able to put something in people’s inbox just like we do in their physical mailbox” – Allan Schou, VoresVilla.
VoresVilla sells ads that are 100% performance based. Their advertisers only pay for opened e-mails rather than sendouts. Their most effective ads are so called “native” ads, and even though they chose to go e-mail first, they sell ads cross media – that is, you can both be featured in their newsletters and on their website (as well as in the magazine).
Allan Schou was kind enough to share some insights into why they chose Passendo as their adserver.
1) Make Things Easier for Your Marketing Team
You want your marketing team to be as effective as possible and spend their time on what is important to increase revenue. By saving time in one area, you can utilize this time in other areas. Instead of using a range of different systems, you can control all your ads from Passendo. You’re able to place a tag in your newsletter and on your website and this way you no longer have to shift from one system to the other to get an overview of your clients’ ads.
“It’s become much easier to control our campaigns and know where to push more or less. We sell ads based on seasons and it’s important for us to know whether we’re ahead or behind.” – Allan Schou, VoresVilla.
Allan also tells us that while he was able to get an overview of which placements worked best before, it’s become a lot easier now. He believes that large publishers would be able to reduce their marketing team if they wanted to. For Allan, Passendo means that he can avoid hiring an extra employee in 2017 as he’d originally planned.
2) Create an Income Using Your Newsletter
According to Allan he’s baffled by the lack of publishers utilizing their newsletters to increase earnings. Instead of focusing on the views you can achieve by sending traffic from your newsletter to your website, you need to realise that you can earn money on your newsletter itself. Moreover you can earn more on people opening your e-mail compared to the pageviews you’ll get on your website since time of engagement is much higher in e-mail and thereby more valuable for your clients.
It’s easy to implement with your current ESP. Passendo supports all e-mail providers including Mailchimp, Marketo and Compost which is what Allan uses for VoresVilla. Passendo has made it equally easy to place ads in your e-mail as it is on your website.
3) Increase Your Revenue by Utilizing Your Inventory
Even if you’ve already acknowledged e-mail as a tool to increase your income we’ve got great news for you. Passendo will help you utilize your inventory – just like you do on your website.
Let’s say you’ve promise your client 1000 clicks over the next four weeks. You might start off by testing their ad in one newsletter. Let’s say that gives them 280 clicks. In the next newsletter they get 312. Too often you’ll end up delivering 1156 clicks because you are 92 short of your delivery and have to include them in an extra broadcast since you can’t just send it out to a few people on your list. Until now.
With Passendo, you can utilize your inventory the same way you do it on your website with total inventory. This way you’ll only deliver what you’ve promised instead of 10% (or more) extra. Now you’re able to sell those extra 10% to someone else, which then increases your earnings.
“I used to give my clients 12-13% more clicks and I didn’t earn a penny on it. I might still give them 1-2% extra, but now I earn money on the last 10% because I can sell it to other clients. When you add it up over a year it’s a very good deal to have invested in Passendo – for this reason alone.” – Allan Schou, VoresVilla.
4) Provide a Better Service For Your Clients
Although the clients of VoresVilla might not get those 10% extra clicks, he still believes they’re getting a better deal since the targeting is better and no one gets left behind.
The end results are delivered faster because they are generated automatically. This means that instead of concentrating on reporting and sending the results, VoresVilla have time to explain and answer potential questions from clients more thoroughly.
“The quality of the clicks that we provide to our clients are definitely better with Passendo.” – Allan Schou, VoresVilla.
5) Save Money by Saving Time
As a smaller publisher VoresVilla needs to be cost effective to keep up and earn money on their digital presence. They’ve been able to increase their turnover by 60% without increasing time spent – just by streamlining their work. This way they have avoided hiring an extra employee, which again saves them an expense.
“Passendo is great at being cost effective. There are also a bunch of features which is revenue-enhancing but first and foremost you save money by saving time.” – Allan Schou, VoresVilla.
Instead of copying and pasting scripts, you only have to do it once – and you can add placements in both your newsletter and your website. This way you only have use one system rather than two or three. You can control everything in Passendo.
Allan has replaced three systems by switching to Passendo. His previous adserver, his tracking system and his reporting system – all his needs are provided by Passendo.
Who Would Allan Recommend Passendo To?
To Allan the benefits of the system far outnumber the few bugs there were at the beginning and the cost of investing in the system. He reckons that the bigger the publisher, the more benefits you’ll reap from a system like this. Large publishers can increase their revenue and smaller ones can save an employee and keep their digital department small.
“I can’t think of any publisher that wouldn’t benefit from Passendo. Either you can 1) save money, 2) make things easier or 3) earn more money. It’s actually quite simple.”
– Allan Schou, VoresVilla.
