WidgetWebExpo Live: Show Me The Money
Chris Cunningham started Appssavvy to try and make money from widgets. In that context, they’re trying to make a bridge between Palo Alto and Madison Avenue.
The ad agencies look at their banner buys, etc. as interruptive. This is a big mistake. Another mistake is that people are already social, so don’t force it. Don’t build your own, leverage the frameworks that already exist. You need to be a part of the conversation.
Pepperidge Farm has tried this, but it doesn’t work so well. So it’s better to get into the platform and enhance them. Find the social environment that matches your audience, and add to it.
The strategies to making money:
1) Ad network to get reach
2) Contextually relevant buys within a vertical
3) Take advantage of an existing userbase
Appssavvy widget platform: getting reach from your widget. They will run your widget against a vertical. Not like Clearspring, Gigya, etc.
The idea is distribution. You’re going to be looking to get your message out there. They’ve done hundreds of these campaigns, and this is the opportunity to get the word out.
When they worked with Adidas, they found applications like Sneakers on Facebook. When Adidas is placed next to this, it’s relevant. The agency and brand are happy, because it feels right. Appssavvy likes it because it’s a good match.
For Made of Honor, they matched it with Weddingbook Facebook application.
One of the ways they’re making money is making apps for brands. But he thinks that this will be on the decline. Brands don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just sponsor a community that exists. You don’t know how many users you’ll have if you launch your own, and agencies don’t like that. Existing apps have their own built-in networks that you can leverage.
It’s not easy to predict what will do well. Some apps, like Hug Me, has huge reach. Some have small, dedicated reach.
Traditional Media Metrics are a crutch. Look at installs, voting, quizzes, stories shared. It’s tough to see exactly what the brand lift is, but time spent, friend invites, influencers – these are the areas where you will probably get lift.
Are you looking for eyeballs or activity?
Find out what’s out there.
Don’t reinvent it. Be a part of it.
Be relevant, be useful, be fun.
For the agency person or media planner, they’re just checking the major portal sites. The platforms are big, widgets are big buzzwords.
The challenges are really easy to see. Education is the big thing. For the most part, the agency world doesn’t get it.
When brands rushed out to build apps, there was no sense of context or real strategy. Not understanding the difference between widgets and apps. Apps don’t go into media units, they don’t run on platforms.
The money is coming. It took two years, but the RFPs are rolling in. Great companies offering solutions now. We don’t have any hardcore metrics on what’s being spent overall, but wanted to show us today what real brands are looking like on the social web and in widgets.
QA
Q: 300 apps? How is this in the space?
A: 15 of top 25 apps on FB. The marketplace is in FaceBook today. From a brand perspective, that’s the place to go. But that’s changing. MySpace is going to capitalize on FB experience. Anyone that opens their APIs, and that’s a good thing.
Q: Widgets vs. Apps. We’re a small SN, what’s the best way to capitalize on APIs
A: great question. I’m an ad sales guy. I think what I would do is talk to developers. Don’t run out to OpenSocial. Go out to California and talk to leading developers about how to develop APIs that go viral.
Q: What kind of ad/rev shares do your offer developers?
A: That’s proprietary – we’re competitive. For the sake of conversation, we’ll say 50-50.
Appssavvy will be debuting a backend partnership with DoubleClick and [someone else] that will expose metrics to developers.
CPM is about 95% of Appssavvy business. They benchmark this at $3-$6 in general. Adidas is $8-$12, Sony pictures is more than $15. On average between $8 and $15 CPM. A lot of developers are selling themselves short.
What sounds interesting in terms of reach? 25k, 50k is where monetization sounds good.
Average media spend is 50-60k split between media and application. There are no half-million or million dollar buys. 25k-50k is being spent on the applications.
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