Making a living on content means keeping your audience so happily engaged they don't turn on their ad blockers. Image credit:               svetikd | Getty Images
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February 2, 2017
For most blog, news, and content website owners, ad revenue is essential. It feeds the budget required to deliver the content that your readers have come to depend on. Unfortunately, in the quest to increase ad revenue, many site publishers have fallen into the trap of adopting aggressive ad placement strategies that wreck the user experience and trigger the tremendous ad blocker adoption rate that now threatens the industry’s survival . Many content companies have responded by trying harder to cultivate relationships with readers , but site owners are also under pressure to demonstrate measureable returns on ad placements. Advertisers are raising concerns about ad “viewability”-- the likelihood of an ad actually being seen by a human being. The days when publishers could rely on ad impressions are rapidly coming to a close. Traditional metrics are simply too imprecise to be useful measurements of an ad’s effectiveness. Meeting these challenges requires creating a “win-win-win” scenario for all industry stakeholders: website owners, advertisers and audiences
I recently spoke with Imonomy’s CEO, Oren Dror, about the state of the content monetization ecosystem and the need for better solutions. What does Imonomy do, and how does it help publishers monetize their content? Imonomy , a leading in-image advertising platform, has developed a solution that helps publishers meet this challenge. Its viewability optimization feature analyses participating publishers’ sites and dynamically places ads, based on which ad inventory slots drive the most views. This new feature is already showing promising results. Throughout Imonomy’s beta release, and after it made the viewability optimization feature available to all publishers in September, the company has seen participating publishers’ revenues increase by as much as 15 to 20 percent. Why is the online publishing industry still focused on ad impressions and not more on earning people's attention with ad content that delivers real value to readers? What role does an in-image platform play in the long-term? Clearly the industry must measure results based on viewability and relevance, rather than simple ad impressions. Publishers understand the importance of the broader ecosystem and are increasingly adopting highly engaging ad tech innovations that improve ad experiences, increase engagement and boost revenues. In-image ads provide a viable long-term model for ads that deliver real value for readers. Our solution delivers relevant and engaging offers that consumers will actually see. Content paywalls don’t seem to be effective, and consumers are wary of sponsored content that lacks credibility. Do you think publishers need to make a stronger case for the usefulness of ads when it comes to keeping the internet free? Yes, you said it yourself: Content isn’t really free. It has a cost. But if publishers are to make a strong case for ad-supported content, they must do everything they can to offer better ad experiences. They must provide users with ads that are relevant and non-intrusive. We strongly believe that if the industry adopts a more audience-centric approach, readers will be far more willing to accept ads in exchange for content. Audiences are a crucial part of the industry ecosystem. Related:  Media Houses Are Blocking AdBlockers - And You Should Be Worried
To what extent do you believe advertisers and media buyers are responsible for the rise of ad blockers? Publishers want better revenue sources in the competitive online environment. As a result, they often place as many ad units on a page as they can, sometimes including intrusive ad formats that are supposed to increase their income. While this monetization strategy may have worked years ago, it just isn’t going to cut it anymore. Users are no longer willing to put up with poor ad experiences, and they’re fighting back with ad blockers. Improving ad quality is equally important. Publishers need to improve tracking, quality assurance for brand safety with trusted partners, and adopt industry best practices to improve the user experience. Related:  Dear Zuckerberg: You Cannot Stop Ad Blocking. No One Can. What are some of the more surprising insights that you’ve learned about better ad placements? We’ve found time and time again that when ads are dynamically placed to maximize viewability, users are far more likely to engage. Remember, advertisers won’t pay for ads that aren’t capable of being seen. Publishers and advertisers often assume that above-the-fold ads are most viewable but, in many cases, ads placed in the middle of the page are far more engaging. This is because readers who scroll down tend to be more engaged. Interestingly, in-image ads located on the bottom of mobile web pages often have the highest viewability and engagement rates. Optimizing for the ecosystem
By shifting their focus from simple ad impressions to ads that consumers actually see, publishers and advertisers have realized that they can earn higher revenues while delivering compelling experiences to their audiences. Clearly, what works for one site and one audience won't necessarily work for others. However, all publishers and advertisers can create the optimal experiences for their audiences, using viewability optimizations and, in the process, earn more sustainable revenues. Matthew Toren
Matthew Toren is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, investor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He is co-author, with his brother Adam, of Kidpreneurs and Small Business, BIG Vision: Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made E...

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Imonomy , an Israeli startup which makes software that analyses webpages and automatically inserts relevant, copyright-free images to accompany the content, has closed a $400,000 seed round from a group of angel investors. Investors include Inon Axel, former CEO of Kasamba (acquired by LivePerson for $40m), Liron Rose, cofounder of AfterDownload (acquired by ironSource for $28m), and Itai Levitan and Tal Shaked, partners at AfterDownload. Imonomy said it will be using the new seed funding for product development and initial marketing and sales activities. The startup was founded in the middle of last year by Oren Dror and Amit Halawa who previously held senior R&D and engineering positions at Yedda, an online Q&A service that was acquired by TechCrunch’s parent company AOL , back in 2007. Imonomy targets its software at smaller-sized web publishers who have a pool of online content but don’t necessarily have the means to spice it up with illustrations — either lacking the production staff to spend the time hunting down royalty free images or the licensing money to pay to display copyrighted images. Imonomy says its semantic software is being used by more than 500 medium-sized websites (with up to 10 million monthly impressions) at present, including AOL Answers and Articles Base. Imonomy’s software scans web content to figure out relevant images to serve up from its database of copyright-free images, and also determines the optimal place to position them on the page to improve user engagement. Inserted images support hover over links to other articles and also displaying ads, giving publishers (and Imonomy) a way to monetise the added eyecandy. It’s effectively a more aesthetic version of inline text link ads. “The idea behind Imonomy is that publishers of content-heavy web sites need to tools to help their sites be visibly attractive,” the startup tells TechCrunch. “High quality copyright-free images are hard to come by and the time and effort required to locate such pictures is a hassle. Imonomy created its content enrichment and monetization system to automate this process in order to help publishers save time, improve user engagement and create monetization opportunities.”
Here’s how it describes its system on its website :
Our database contains millions of images that cover every possible topic. Our system scans your webpage, finds the best fitting image and automatically insert them into the published page. Thus making content more interesting and informative. Our technology brings our customers greater user engagement and lower bounce rates, which has been in proven to result in significantly increased revenues. imonomy also creates intelligent links between pages, which encourages visitors to easily navigate to additional relevant content. The visual semantic engine can be implemented easily on any website, and we also provide a free API that expands the functionality and the systems abilities. In terms of competition, Imonomy concedes there are “numerous content enrichment tools” out there — name-checking the likes of OutBrain, Zemanta and GumGum — but argues that its approach is unique because it’s bundling “content enrichment and monetization opportunities in a single automated process to publishers for free”. It’s not charging for use of its technology, instead it has a freemium model, tied to the ads that are inserted along with the images — sharing this revenue with its publisher customers so also taking a cut itself. Its revenue-sharing percentage depends on the size of the publisher and the volume of traffic on its website. But for larger sites with more impressions it takes a lower percentage than for smaller, less well visited sites. The startup added that it expects to be profitable by the end of the year. An example of an added image plus ad powered by Imonomy’s engine is shown below:
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Imonomy Raises $400K Seed For Its Visual Semantic Software That Adds Relevant Photos To Publishers’ Websites, Monetised With Ads

Dassault Systemes

Israeli Defense Forces

Yedda

Seed VC

imonomy has developed a technology that scans the text from webpages and automatically fits relevant images to the written content. The company's engine automatically locates free images and finds the optimal image placement on the webpage layout. With imonomy websites are more attractive and engaging, content-relevant pictures drive more interest from website visitors.

Date	5/23/2013
Round	Seed VC
Amount	$0.4M
Investors	AltaIR Capital, Inon Axel, Itai Levitan, Liron Rose, and Tal Shaked
Valuation
Revenue	0 FY undefined
Sources	1

First funding	Last Funding	Investor	Rounds	Type	Location
5/23/2013	5/23/2013	Liron Rose	1 Seed VC
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	Inon Axel	Subscribe to see more	Angel Investor (Individual)
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	Itai Levitan	Subscribe to see more	Angel Investor (Individual)
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	Tal Shaked	Subscribe to see more	Angel Investor (Individual)
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	AltaIR Capital	Subscribe to see more	Venture Capital	Russian Federation

First funding	5/23/2013	00/00/0000	00/00/0000	00/00/0000	00/00/0000
Last Funding	5/23/2013	00/00/0000	00/00/0000	00/00/0000	00/00/0000
Investor	Liron Rose	Inon Axel	Itai Levitan	Tal Shaked	AltaIR Capital
Rounds	1 Seed VC	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more
Board Seats
Type		Angel Investor (Individual)	Angel Investor (Individual)	Angel Investor (Individual)	Venture Capital
Location					Russian Federation

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imonomy

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imonomy Funding, imonomy Valuation & imonomy Revenue

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