Newspaper Sites Can Use PPC to Build Revenue

Online newspapers looking for additional ways to increase profit and revenue might consider spending money on pay-per-click campaigns.

Sponsoring keywords on major search engines such as Bing and Google can drive targeted traffic to the sections of a site that generate the most revenue. More audience means more ad inventory, and more ad inventory means more revenue.

News has high readership potential and low advertising potential. Classified sections have moderate readership potential and plenty of opportunities for driving revenue. The major classified categories are prime candidates for PPC.

If a major local Realtor has $5,000 for a one-month campaign, the site’s real estate section may not have enough page views and ad inventory to fulfill the entire campaign. Pay per click can solve that problem.

Let’s assume the real estate section potentially can generate $60 in revenue per thousand pages. Note that this is a page RPM rather than an ad unit RPM.

Let’s also assume the typical visitor to that section views five pages per visit. It would take 200 visits to generate 1,000 page views.

The newspaper doesn’t have enough inventory, so it launches a pay-per-click campaign on a search engine. Further assume the average cost per click for a lower-level position is 20 cents. If 200 visits are needed to generate 1,000 page views or $60 in revenue, the PPC cost will be $40 (200 visits x 20 cents per click).

The campaign has a 33 percent profit margin, which is OK but not spectacular for PPC. So the campaign coordinator looks to lower the cost per click to a range that will generate a 50 to 100 percent margin, which is more in line with a successful campaign.

The end result is higher revenue for the site, a clear profit margin and a satisifed client.