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Ukrainska Pravda Case Study

How to maximize website monetization revenue by up to 120% by realizing its full potential?

Research problem

How can we change the way we monetize a website during a war to create a new source of income and continue to function? 

Target audience

This case will be interesting for news publishers who lost all or part of their income because of the war in Ukraine. In addition, this information will be valuable for any website owner as it will help them take a new look at video content and monetize online resources.

The publisher faced a widespread problem in the Ukrainian market after the beginning of a full-scale invasion on February 24th; the usual monetization schemes stopped working. 

The issue of monetization is very acute for all news publishers - there are a lot of important events that need to be constantly covered. The amount of work has multiplied, and so have reader expectations, but revenues have dropped to a minimum. 

In such circumstances, monetization is not a nice bonus, but the only way to pay employees. This was not the first client with a similar situation, so we knew what to do. Since the beginning of March, we implemented a new strategy for monetizing websites with helpful video content for several clients and got great results. 

  • To determine the most effective add format that the maximum number of users would interact with; 
  • To increase the number of views and the time spent on the page;
  • To create a new source of income by using video content that will allow the publisher to continue its essential work.

Workflow 

We started by implementing video content on EPravda and Life Pravda subdomains to find the most effective option. This solution and the A/B test allowed us to quickly realize what type of content, topics, and location would bring us the most results. 

As a result, we added banner ads to the subdomains and got the result of +100% income in 2 months. Currently, we are working on improving this result with the video player. 

Separately, we want to mention the importance of the A/B test and hypothesis testing. Usually, standard sizes of video content are used on all computer and mobile versions of the site, but we found out through testing that the most effective format here was 300x600 which is not common at all. 

Another action that increased ad revenue by almost 10% was establishing price floors. We increased the number of interactions with ads and set a new minimum allowable price for advertisers, which we plan to do in time on all the publisher's domains.

As a final additional source of revenue on the EPravda and Life Pravda subdomains, we have made catfish blocks - a fixed ad at the top or bottom of the browser that is displayed until the user clicks the "Close" button. 

In total, all these actions led to the fact that we realized the potential of two subdomains! Revenue from each of them has increased significantly! 

On the first subdomain, Life Pravda, the income increase was +121% compared to the period before the launch. On the second one, Epravda, it was +81%. And on the main domain +88%.

After successful work on subdomains, we moved on to monetizing the website's main page.  

What we did: 

  • We added video blocks and doubled pre-roll on videos;
  • Made several ads throughout the site;
  • Added catfish blocks; 
  • Determined that a non-standard size of 580/400 worked best.  

The results are excellent; we have a final count and will gladly share the final figures with you. But, in the meantime, let's conclude our entire case study.

Summary: 

This case was proof that every website has enormous potential - if it is realized, the monetization income can grow several times more. 

This time we took a lot of time for testing to determine which option was the most effective quickly, and it yielded results! So don't be afraid of unconventional solutions; give all the boldest hypotheses a chance!

About Client
Our client is one of the most significant news media resources in Ukraine, Ukrainska Pravda
http://pravda.com.ua
Monthly visits
42M
The Audience
is 85% from Ukraine and 15% from other regions.
Revenue growth
Life Pravda +121%
Epravda +81%
Ukrainska Pravda +88%

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