Google "Contributor"

[Ryuzaki]

Source: https://contributor.google.com/

I hope in my heart of hearts that this fails hard. Going back to my "future of marketing" thread, I mentioned Inverse Paywalls, where the choice would be given for you to skip artificial inconveniences by paying a premium.

Google Contributor's page says... along with some pretty graphics:

With Contributor you'll see fewer ads on millions of sites and on all of your devices.

Select a monthly amount to contribute and use the web as you normally would.

Each time you visit a site and ads are replaced, part of your contribution will fund the creators of that site.

SIGN UP NOW
​

So they are ready to cannibalize Adsense earnings. Obviously they aren't stupid, so there's going to be some algorithm that decides just how many ads go bye-bye or not, and the value of the ads will be less than the value of your contribution, because they want profit.

But still, how can they imagine this is a good idea, unless they have some data that says it'll positively affect their Adwords revenue. Less locations for ads to show up = higher bids? Or will the bidders run off and take their money to the PPC competition instead?

Fun times in the future, my friends.

 

[droplister]

If someone can pay $10 per month and see 50% less ads, I'm pretty sure that will be pretty crappy for me. But maybe they did the numbers and this is a way to monetize all the people using Ad Block? I'm still initially thinking WTF?! But maybe the people who are savvy enough to find and pay for this aren't the same people who click on Adsense. At least, I can only hope.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@droplister, Wow, I didn't even click through to the next page:

I see they left some wiggle room with the usage of the word "typical".

Those #'s definitely don't make sense. Let's hope it's just an early loss leader to gain traction, then they ramp up the price. I get $5 clicks all the time, so this is most definitely absurd.

 

[Romac]

But maybe the people who are savvy enough to find and pay for this aren't the same people who click on Adsense. At least, I can only hope.

I'm thinking the same thing. Anyone who would pay to not see ads is probably not the person clicking ads in the first place so maybe it'll work out for the best.

 

[CCarter]

I'm genuinely baffled...

 

[miketpowell]

Google tries all sorts of random stuff - it's what you get to do when you have, in their own internal words "a magic money machine".

Google makes money through putting ads on "free" products. It only makes sense they would want to be at the forefront of always experimenting with what people are willing to pay/do to avoid seeing ads(see like 10 other products over the last few years). They definitely don't want someone else to come up with that model first. Google probably wants this to "fail" but at the same time cannot afford not to do it in case people actually like it.

Plus this also opens the road a bit more for sites to just completely block people using Adblock ect and say - "Hey goober if you want to use our site either pay up or remove Adblock, hosting bills aren't free." and direct them to this. Right now there are some people that claim they would pay they just hate ads and have no current alternative.

As far as you webmasters with Adsense - this shouldn't concern you any more than Adblock does. If you have high eCPMs I doubt they will stop showing your ads and instead show the person less low eCPM ads on other sites. That way they can show 50% less ads to someone while only giving up 10% of the revenue because they were all low eCPM ads.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Google probably wants this to "fail" but at the same time cannot afford not to do it in case people actually like it.

Good point. I forget most of this is psychological warfare, even beyond the Algorithm game. The idea could be to purposefully make it fail to deter others from trying it, which would keep Adsense in the game for a longer period of time. Interesting.

and instead show the person less low eCPM ads on other sites

That's also a good point. They will be selecting which ads and which sites are showing the ads. Which is most definitely going to drive CPC's through the roof. With interest based ads, there will be some niches that simply won't be able to afford Adwords any more... (well, let's not forget that this isn't going to affect the display in the SERPs).

 

[Andrewkar]

It won't change anything, well except that G will make more money and also will make people a bit happier. As other have said already, first thing that comes to my mind is users using adblock etc. Second thought is that less savvy users who don't use adblock (because they don't know about it or whatever...), but in the same time they are tired of ads will consider that option. They are going to see a bit better targeted ads, and so advertisers will get better ROI.

If that's the case, it all comes down to very precise targeting. Potentially better CTRs etc. for advertisers. Great idea in my opinion, or at least... great try.

Also another thought that comes to my mind. Big picture.

Google is mature by now. They have all they could get (at least a lot!). So now they are not expanding anymore, they are fine tuning existing services to squeeze as much as possible out of them. Social media is taking over big time, people hate regular ads placed on sites (be it Adsense or whatever, actually Google haven't explored properly all possibilities yet, but that's not our problem). "Word of mouth" is what's driving sales. Social media. Circle is closing, just technology and trends are changing.

 

[Ryuzaki]

They are going to see a bit better targeted ads

What makes you say this? I'm not following. I'm thinking about how the quality of the ads and the relevance aren't what's going to reach the forefront, but who's willing to spend the most for the click. The higher CPC will win. And with retargeting, people very well may simply get stalked by the same one or two companies willing to blow a wad on PPC. It's going to boil down to budget, not relevancy, I think.

 

[rogerke]

Do you guys even math? Of course this isn't going to be a loss to Google. In fact if this shit really takes off it could easily triple their display ad revenue.

The math isn't that hard. Google's ad revenue in FY 2014 was close to $60 billion, with about 22% (~ $15 billion) coming from Google's Display Network (which this is shit about). Now, GDN has a reach of 1 billion users a month. If each of them decides to cough up the 10 bucks a month they'll rake in $120 billion a year and still display ~62.5% of the current ads. Now the publishers have to get paid as well so lets assume they use the current 2/3 Adsense publisher split. That leaves 1/3*120,000,000,000 + 0.625*15,000,000,000= ~ $ 50 billion (!!!) in Google's pocket compared to $15 billion now.

This was all ceteris paribus and like mentioned before they'll probably find ways to squeeze out even more. And probably equally important, if this shit is taking off pretty much all other display networks will be toast because of the greatly increased revenue publishers are going to get from this model.

Don't think it'll take off though.

 

[Andrewkar]

What makes you say this? I'm not following. I'm thinking about how the quality of the ads and the relevance aren't what's going to reach the forefront, but who's willing to spend the most for the click. The higher CPC will win. And with retargeting, people very well may simply get stalked by the same one or two companies willing to blow a wad on PPC. It's going to boil down to budget, not relevancy, I think.

Hmm... you are right for sure.

My previous posts was based on a wrong assumption. I don't know why, but I thought that users will have control over the type of ads they want to see (what niche etc.). Also, I thought globally, not only GDN

 

[Calamari]

So it's become clear to me this morning that the money that is "contributed" actually becomes part of the bidding process for ad space. If their contributed money is the highest bid for that ad slot they don't see an ad.

https://support.google.com/contributor/answer/6286709

Key snippet:

"when Contributor users visit a site in Google’s network, their monthly contribution is used to bid on their behalf in the ad auction—so they end up buying the ad slot rather than a traditional advertiser. The more they contribute, the fewer ads they see, and you still get paid."

So if you "contribute" you're not really funding anything other than adding more money into Adsense coffers to bids for ads.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Wow. That is genius. It's semi-misleading to the consumer, even if they spill it out clear as day, people are going to make assumptions.

They literally just convinced the general public to become Adwords users.

I hope they all opt out of interest based ads or are willing to contribute their annual salary.

 

[built]

To be honest I use adblock 24/7, the shit people are doing is so annoying. Especially on mobile, I dont want to have to scroll past a huge ad.

And some of these ads just autoplay and use too much data. I'm thinking about removing adsense from site, but at the moment its my only source of income

 

[miketpowell]

So it's become clear to me this morning that the money that is "contributed" actually becomes part of the bidding process for ad space. If their contributed money is the highest bid for that ad slot they don't see an ad.

https://support.google.com/contributor/answer/6286709

Key snippet:

"when Contributor users visit a site in Google’s network, their monthly contribution is used to bid on their behalf in the ad auction—so they end up buying the ad slot rather than a traditional advertiser. The more they contribute, the fewer ads they see, and you still get paid."

So if you "contribute" you're not really funding anything other than adding more money into Adsense coffers to bids for ads.

Wow that's an interesting way of doing it but it makes sense from Googles perspective. "If you don't want to see ads, are you willing to pay us more than the advertisers do?"

To be honest I use adblock 24/7, the shit people are doing is so annoying. Especially on mobile, I dont want to have to scroll past a huge ad.

And some of these ads just autoplay and use too much data. I'm thinking about removing adsense from site, but at the moment its my only source of income

It is very much getting ridiculous, I've been doing online marketing full time sine 2009 and an avid internet user since 97'. Ad spam definitely feels like it's peaking again. It's mostly because of the economic growth companies have experienced the last few years. So many companies are once again dumping cumulative billions of dollars without directly accounting for results. It's what happens when times are "good".

What puts a stop to all of it is another recession. All those campaigns dry up over night and the time for direct response marketers that actually accurately track performance are supreme again.

 

[Ryuzaki]

To be honest I use adblock 24/7

Uses Adblock when ads are his only source of income. Traitor!!!! Turncoat!!!!

 

[backwoods]

Google launched contributor exactly a year ago to test this on a sample of sites so they already have the data if this a viable solution to adblocker. It must make sense on their end if they are going to roll it out across the board.

As mentioned above, you should be more worried about adblocker programs than contributer! Tech savvy people likely aren't clicking on your ads anyway so it's better than zero.