John Wiley's Dummies.com and Avalon Travel's Moon.com recently underwent major overhauls that included the addition of targeted banner ads, a move that has created important new revenue streams for each company. While these kinds of books lend themselves to becoming useful Web sites, their publishers can't just give away their content. “We think about ways that our customers want to consume content,” said Craig Schickler, Wiley's director of e-business development and brand site advertising. “In some cases, an entire book is appropriate; in other cases, they're looking for quick answers to a problem. They'll come to our site, and rather than charging them for that answer, we need to monetize that info through advertising.”
The old Dummies.com was, according to Schickler, “primarily a catalogue site,” and had no advertising. The site was relaunched in December. “We're still in the early days of ramping up our ad sales efforts,” said Schickler, “but advertising definitely plays a key role in relaunching the site and migrating the For Dummies brand into an online how-to site.” Wiley is handling the Dummies.com ad sales in-house, and also has an in-house online editorial team and production team. The advertising plan includes display ads, Google AdSense and sponsored videos. Schickler also said, “We have the ability to do custom sponsorships for advertisers, whether it's targeting particular content categories, or a specific content site of interest to them. We have a newsletter program as well.” Current advertisers on Dummies.com include the Bidz online auction site. Wiley will give a royalty share of ad revenue to authors whose content is used on Dummies.com.
The old Moon.com had ads by Google AdSense since 2004, until the relaunch; according to Jen Rios-Burns, online marketing Manager for Avalon Travel and Seal Press, “When we decided to redesign and relaunch, we thought it was a good time to add banner ads.” Rather than handle the ad sales inhouse, Avalon Travel went with Tribal Fusion, based in Emeryville, Calif. Tribal Fusion provides ads for Moon.com that are travel related, such as one currently running for Killington Ski Resort. “We wanted to make sure that the ads we're running will be interesting to our users,” said Rios-Burns. Avalon Travel is also sharing ad revenue with authors whose work is featured on the site.
Despite the down economy, both companies are hopeful about their new ad-supported sites. “We're optimistic about the growth prospects and really view this new site as a high-growth area for the brand,” Schickler said. Rios-Burns acknowledged, “We wanted to make the ads as unobtrusive as possible, but also we know that they're something we have to have on the site to be successful and profitable.”
