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This is a must listen if you are building online.
Matt Paulson (CEO of Marketbeat) and Gavin Bechtold share the stage at New Media Summit in Austin, 2026. As newsletters gain prominence, this session explores why a strong website presence remains essential. Using real-world examples, these two discuss how publishers grow audiences on both fronts, the unique roles each channel plays, and the strategies for monetizing content across web and newsletter platforms.
Read the full recap here: https://www.ezoic.com/blog/inside-the-new-media-summit-event
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0:00
I'd like to bring
0:01
Matt McGarry back on the stage here as
0:04
well as Matt Paulson and Gavin Becton
0:06
who is the head of partnerships at
0:08
Ezoic. So please give them all a round
0:11
of applause.
0:40
All right. How's everybody doing?
0:45
Like the music? Great. Thank you Gavin.
0:47
Thank you. Okay. We're going to talk
0:50
about websites for a minute. We've only
0:52
covered that a little bit so far. And
0:55
I've found that a lot of people under
0:57
utilize their websites and how much
0:59
money you can make from a website. How
1:02
much audience growth you can get from a
1:03
website. So that's what this session is
1:05
all about. How to grow your website
1:07
traffic and mostly how to monetize your
1:10
website traffic. So I'm going to talk to
1:12
Matt and Gavin and then we'll have a
1:14
little bit more time for audience Q&A at
1:15
the end because Matt didn't get to do
1:16
that earlier. So
1:19
real quick, Matt you already introduced
1:20
yourself but Gavin and Matt just quickly
1:23
remind us again what your companies do,
1:25
who you are, etc.
1:28
Sure. Ezoic is a monetization platform.
1:31
We help websites create predictable,
1:34
diversified revenue through programmatic
1:36
ads. If that sounds confusing, we help
1:39
you turn your website traffic into
1:41
revenue. Ezoic's been around for 15
1:43
years. I've been a part of the ride for
1:46
11 of those years.
1:48
Today I work directly with our largest
1:51
customers including Matt and Ryan who as
1:54
you mentioned unfortunately can't be
1:56
here. But I'll just get a little bit
1:57
more one-on-one time with you today.
1:59
Yep.
2:01
And Matt, tell us how much website
2:04
traffic you're bringing in every month
2:07
and how much money you make from your
2:08
website. Yeah, about 4 to 500,000 page
2:11
views a day. So 12 to 15 million page
2:13
views on a website a month. We make like
2:15
300,000 ish a month from display ads.
2:19
Yeah.
2:20
Not bad. Okay. Gavin, you work with
2:24
literally hundreds of publishers. Why do
2:26
you think so many newsletter focused
2:28
publishers and creators under invest in
2:30
their websites?
2:32
In my opinion, I believe people do
2:34
overlook the web. Especially with this
2:36
group, right? Because many of you are
2:38
newsletter first. That's what you know.
2:40
And I think there is a perception out
2:42
there that a a newsletter is easier to
2:44
begin than a website. However, the
2:47
reality is there's so much extra value
2:50
when a subscriber clicks through your
2:52
newsletter and lands on your website
2:55
staying in your own ecosystem rather
2:58
than driving them off through an
2:59
external link. I say that because it
3:02
compounds value acting as a flywheel for
3:05
your subscribers and also opening up new
3:07
monetization channels that aren't
3:09
possible in the inbox alone.
3:12
I actually think a lot of newsletter
3:14
folks are recognizing that. Beehive is
3:16
actually the perfect example. They
3:18
started as a newsletter first business.
3:21
They've since created their website
3:23
builder because they recognize the value
3:25
of having a web presence.
3:28
If Ryan was here, similar story. He
3:30
started with a a local newsletter list,
3:34
transitioned to the web, now more
3:37
recently monetizing on the web.
3:39
Matt, I think you're more old school.
3:40
You started with the the web first,
3:42
right?
3:42
>> Yeah, tell us like the evolution of your
3:44
your audience, Matt. Like did you start
3:46
web first? Did you start newsletter
3:48
first? How has that changed in the past
3:49
20 years? Yeah, started in 2006 like a
3:53
long time ago. And and back then like
3:56
this was maybe like after the first wave
3:59
of e-zines but kind of before the second
4:00
wave of them.
4:02
Really that was kind of the big blogging
4:04
wave where everybody had a blogger.com
4:06
blog or like a WordPress blog and like
4:09
the game was to try to rank for keywords
4:12
and then people go to your website and
4:14
and click on ads or display ads from
4:16
Ezoic or other people like that. Which
4:19
is like that was the game for a while
4:21
and then like you kind of realized over
4:23
time like it's kind of a treadmill of
4:25
like only like
4:27
you know, you're like you're you're only
4:29
like as good as the amount of search
4:31
traffic Google sent you today. And like
4:33
obviously that's not a great long-term
4:35
game plan because
4:36
Google you know, Google's whims change
4:38
all the time. So you want to capture you
4:40
know, I figured like okay, I have to
4:41
capture these people on an email list.
4:44
It was probably like 2010, 2011 when I
4:46
got my first opt-in for the marketing
4:48
list.
4:49
And then over time it just kind of
4:50
shifted more towards email. Almost
4:53
entirely towards email and SMS and now
4:55
it's shifting back to the web a little
4:56
bit.
4:58
Yeah, like 2022 and 2023 were like not
5:00
great years for display for us but
5:02
since working with these guys we're
5:03
we're making more money again.
5:05
And how do your Matt, how does your
5:08
email list or newsletter and the website
5:10
work together? Are there synergies
5:11
there?
5:12
Yeah, obviously like we're trying to
5:13
generate email opt-ins on our website.
5:16
But then when we have people on our
5:17
email list, we can send them like when
5:19
we send them articles they include like
5:21
links back to our website. So we try to
5:23
use the website to generate email
5:24
sign-ups then we have people on our
5:26
email list, we send them content with
5:28
links back to the website to try to get
5:29
them to go back to the website and then
5:31
obviously they'll click on some ads.
5:33
So you're kind of making that flywheel
5:35
like Gavin mentioned where they go to
5:37
the website, they see ads, they join the
5:38
newsletter, the list and they see ads,
5:41
you monetize them in email but then when
5:42
they're directed back to the website for
5:45
articles, you monetize them again with
5:46
more ads. Yeah, really like when you do
5:48
this at scale you want all of your you
5:49
want to have four or five different
5:51
channels and you want them to all feed
5:52
into each other. And then just the fact
5:55
that you have all the channels and like
5:57
maybe you've got YouTube, email, SMS and
5:59
they all feed back into your website or
6:00
like like you're going to make some
6:02
pretty decent display ad money because
6:03
like somebody who is a subscriber that
6:05
you've identified and like I can tell
6:07
Ezoic like this isn't just a random
6:09
person on the internet. This is
6:12
I don't know, whoever and like this is
6:14
like I can you can send like a hashed
6:16
email to Ezoic to identify the person
6:18
and then they know a lot about that that
6:20
person based off their email and can
6:22
like target those ads better and get
6:24
higher CPMs that way.
6:25
Gavin, can you explain how that works
6:27
with Matt just described because I think
6:29
a lot of people I think that sounds cool
6:31
but they don't totally understand like
6:32
how that works, why they make more money
6:34
that way. Can you break that down?
6:37
First-party data is really important and
6:38
I think it's it's often overlooked on
6:41
the web. I think people are familiar
6:43
with that but in its simplest form it's
6:44
an email address, a phone number, a
6:46
registered user.
6:48
In newsletters I think folks already use
6:50
it to segment your audience whether that
6:52
be for content or promotions.
6:55
The reality is though you can use that
6:57
same first-party data on a website to
7:00
secure premium programmatic advertising
7:02
rates. And we see about two times to
7:06
three times what you would traditionally
7:07
see without leveraging first-party data.
7:09
So this is huge.
7:11
Yeah, as Matt was describing if you have
7:14
either a newsletter list or a text list
7:17
and you're driving those users to a
7:19
website, Ezoic has a method where we
7:23
store the email, hash it, pass it on to
7:25
advertisers allowing excuse me, allowing
7:28
advertisers to bid a more premium CPM on
7:32
your audience.
7:33
And how does that affect the lifetime
7:35
value of a a newsletter subscriber?
7:37
Because now you're monetizing them
7:39
obviously in email and then a website
7:41
too when they're directed back there.
7:43
Maybe we'll start with Matt. Like do you
7:45
do you calculate that into your
7:47
subscriber LTV or user LTV? It's it's
7:50
really hard to do that cuz like you you
7:51
don't get post backs of like who's
7:53
clicking from the advertiser. We kind of
7:57
just treat it as like a separate kind of
7:58
revenue stream. It doesn't tie back to
8:00
users but obviously if I send like we
8:03
used to do like slideshows where it'd be
8:04
like 10-page articles. Where like you
8:07
click through and there was ads on every
8:08
page. It doesn't really work anymore so
8:09
we got rid of it. But back in the day
8:11
like I could send like
8:14
like here's the 10 best stocks to buy in
8:16
November or whatever whatever thing was
8:19
and there'd be 10 pages of ads and like
8:20
we'd make a couple few thousand bucks
8:22
every time we like send out an email and
8:24
got everybody to like go through all the
8:25
pages. Like it used to work awesome.
8:28
Do you have any data on that, Gavin?
8:30
Like how much that can increase
8:31
subscriber LTV or revenue from email
8:33
when you layer this together?
8:36
Well, I think it's more
8:38
just kind of like in theory a
8:42
a website raises your ceiling. It allows
8:45
you to extend engagement beyond the
8:47
inbox. And what it actually does is is
8:49
is it allows you to monetize the same
8:52
user in multiple ways through multiple
8:54
channels.
8:55
Simple example of that is let's say you
8:57
have a newsletter, you're selling a
8:59
direct sponsorship. Great. Now if you
9:02
have a website, you can sell a direct
9:04
sponsorship in your newsletter and your
9:06
website. Advertisers love package deals.
9:09
And then the next level is okay, you're
9:11
doing sponsorships on your website, add
9:14
programmatic on top of that. That's
9:15
instantly layering a new revenue source.
9:18
The biggest brands today aren't choosing
9:20
between one or the other, they're doing
9:21
both. And that's exactly how you you
9:23
raise your lifetime subscriber value.
9:25
It's exactly what Matt what Matt is
9:26
doing. It's what Ryan is doing. Um to
9:30
give a really good example with with
9:31
Matt's secondary site, the
9:34
earlybirdpublishing.com.
9:37
I'm familiar with it too but do you want
9:38
to share about that? Yeah, so we have a
9:41
text list called Early Bird Stock of the
9:43
Day. And then every day we text out
9:46
kind of do a teaser like today's stock
9:48
of the day is
9:50
company that sends rockets into space
9:52
and then company is SpaceX. And then
9:54
like they'll you you click through on
9:56
your phone and then there'll be a page
9:58
where it's got like an article and some
10:00
different kind of like AI content about
10:01
that stock, but then there's Ezoic Ezoic
10:04
ads on there and you know, 40 50 grand a
10:06
month from sending out that text back to
10:09
our website, and then it's monetized by
10:11
display ads.
10:13
Yeah, I think it's important to clarify
10:14
that that traffic is a lot more valuable
10:16
because it is coming from a text list.
10:19
It's not coming from organic traffic,
10:21
which is fine if it is, but the value of
10:23
his audience is significantly higher for
10:26
advertisers because
10:28
he has a phone number. Same thing if you
10:30
have a newsletter, which many of you do.
10:32
If you can think about, great, I have
10:34
this big list, what can I do with it?
10:35
Can I intentionally drive it back to a
10:37
site and monetize it another way, then
10:41
that's a great idea.
10:42
Yeah, and I like that because a lot of
10:44
the stuff Matt does, people think it's
10:46
super complicated, but that's an example
10:48
of something simple working super well.
10:49
Get people to join an SMS list, you send
10:51
them articles about what's relevant for
10:54
that day. When they click the article,
10:56
they're monetized with ads that are
10:58
enhanced by first-party data from Ezoic,
11:00
and
11:01
that's that's doing well.
11:02
Gavin, when do you think
11:04
programmatic advertising actually
11:06
becomes a viable and meaningful revenue
11:08
stream for a media business?
11:11
Well, I think everyone should be doing
11:12
it because it's extra revenue. It's
11:14
passive. It's easy to do, but I would
11:16
say at a point where it becomes
11:19
meaningful is is when it scales. And in
11:22
our experience, that typically looks
11:24
like about 250,000
11:26
monthly website visitors or the
11:29
equivalent size of of a subscriber list.
11:31
And if you haven't used that yet, like
11:32
we talked about, you can use that to
11:34
drive traffic back to your site. Maybe
11:35
it's daily. Um, but that's about the
11:38
range that we're seeing with with Matt's
11:40
stock of the day site, it's actually
11:43
under 250,000 visitors per month, and
11:45
he's still bringing in 40,000 50,000
11:48
dollars per month.
11:50
MarketBeat, of course, is a a different
11:52
animal. That's millions of visitors per
11:55
month.
11:56
Probably about half of it is identified
11:57
too from newsletter and and SMS. Um, and
12:00
that site is doing 200 to 250,000 from
12:04
programmatic alone.
12:07
What's like Give us Give us a ballpark
12:08
about numbers. So, what's like a
12:11
realistic expectation of of someone who
12:13
has 250,000 visitors a month, what type
12:16
of revenue can they expect?
12:20
Yeah, so I think a a
12:22
realistic expectation, um, one of the
12:25
ways that we look at this is is RPM. If
12:27
you aren't familiar with that, but
12:28
revenue per per thousand views,
12:31
that's going to vary quite a bit based
12:32
upon your audience, but we'll assume
12:34
it's premium, meaning many of those
12:36
folks are identified from the US,
12:39
they're in a a high-value niche. Uh, but
12:41
we see RPMs anywhere from $20 to $100.
12:45
Matt's site, the stock site, is $300
12:48
RPMs. Um, so with that range, uh, you
12:52
know, certainly five figures per month
12:54
in ad revenue with a 200
12:56
>> session RPMs? Session RPMs, yeah.
12:58
>> Okay.
12:59
So, like a session RPM and like a page
13:01
RPM.
13:02
So, like
13:03
a session RPM would be like
13:05
my revenue per a thousand sessions. So,
13:07
a session is like somebody coming to the
13:09
website, clicking on three or four
13:10
pages, right? Correct, yeah. Yep.
13:14
What are Matt, what do you think are
13:15
some of the biggest mistakes or
13:17
misconceptions or just things people
13:19
miss when they're trying to monetize
13:21
their website?
13:22
Well, what what you kind of see a lot,
13:24
especially with this crowd and like
13:25
people that are like at the other like
13:26
newsletter conference, it it's very
13:29
email focused, and the website's almost
13:30
like an afterthought. Like you just
13:32
don't think about it. Um, cuz like until
13:34
recently like neither Substack or
13:37
Beehiiv or ConvertKit like really had
13:38
good website tools. Like they've all
13:40
gotten gotten better, so like you can
13:42
build a real website on any of these
13:44
platforms now. Um, but you have to think
13:47
of like the web as its own channel in
13:49
the same way that email or SMS or
13:50
YouTube is a channel. Like
13:53
it's it's a great place to send people.
13:55
It's a great place to make money. It's a
13:57
great place to have content. Just like
13:59
you have to not just have it happen by
14:01
default. Like you just need to be
14:02
intentional with it and then figure out
14:05
how you can use it as like both
14:06
engagement and monetization as a
14:08
separate channel.
14:10
That's a good point. Gavin, what do you
14:11
think? Any mistakes you see publishers
14:13
make with their websites?
14:15
Well, I think a big mistake is if you're
14:17
currently using programmatic, it's not
14:19
leveraging your first-party data, and I
14:21
and I think that's overlooked, and maybe
14:23
people just don't know how to do it.
14:26
So, for for any folks here who are at
14:28
least at that level, who are using
14:30
programmatic or who are considering it,
14:33
your number one takeaway should be
14:35
going to speak with your current ad
14:37
provider and asking them,
14:39
are they leveraging your first-party
14:40
data, and if so, how effectively? Cuz if
14:43
they're not doing that, they're leaving
14:44
a lot on the table without knowing it.
14:45
And in this context, first-party data is
14:47
just email or phone number, right?
14:49
That's the main thing. You You need one
14:51
or the other to start here.
14:51
>> That's the main thing, yeah. If you
14:53
don't have that, uh, the other popular
14:55
format is registered users. So, if you
14:57
have any logins on your site, um, or Go-
15:01
Google single sign-on is something
15:03
popular that we see today.
15:05
If someone here, like like a lot of
15:07
people are under monetizing their
15:09
website right now,
15:10
what do you think are some of the first
15:12
things they should do after this event
15:14
to fix that? We don't have to talk just
15:15
about ads. Just in general, how do you
15:16
monetize your website more? What are
15:18
like the simple actionable things they
15:20
can do over the next couple weeks to fix
15:22
that? We'll go with Gavin and then Matt.
15:25
Yeah, uh, well, I think one thing if if
15:27
while we're on the the topic of ads is
15:30
there's a lot of folks here who have
15:31
great content online,
15:33
but they might put it behind a a paywall
15:37
or a subscription, but they also have a
15:39
lot of great free content on the web,
15:42
and it's kind of just existing there,
15:43
and they're they're hoping that people
15:45
might upgrade and and pay for their
15:47
premium offering. Uh, but what you don't
15:49
realize is there's a a large segment of
15:51
your audience sitting there who's
15:53
accessing your content for free, and you
15:56
can keep that content free, but you can
15:58
also monetize that by implementing an ad
16:01
strategy, and I think that's something
16:03
that folks can think about. Again, that
16:05
is oftentimes overlooked.
16:07
What do you think about? What What
16:08
should they do after this?
16:10
Uh, go sign up for an ad account
16:11
somewhere
16:12
um, with Ezoic or
16:15
anywhere else.
16:16
Um,
16:17
it's really not hard to like do an
16:19
initial implementation of an ad network.
16:22
It's can be as simple as a couple lines
16:23
of code. Like it's it's not too hard to
16:26
do. Like a tech guy can do it in a
16:27
couple hours. So, like don't think of
16:29
this is like some big grand initiative
16:31
that's going to take a quarter to do.
16:33
Like might take a quarter up to optimize
16:35
it, but just set it up, you can do it in
16:37
a few hours. It's not hard.
16:38
Uh, one thing I'll tell you guys though
16:40
is like if you get a a website that's
16:42
got a decent amount of traffic, you are
16:44
going to get tons of emails from
16:46
different display ad networks that all
16:48
promise the moon and like oh, we can get
16:51
you way more money than you're getting
16:52
now, and the reality is like this is
16:55
kind of a commodity business these days.
16:57
These guys do some cool unique stuff
16:58
with like the identity stuff, but most
17:00
of the firms that like
17:02
are like doing display ads that aren't
17:05
Google or just like running Google ads
17:06
and taking a cut. So, like just be very
17:09
careful with who you work with in like
17:10
the display ad space. Like Ezoic is good
17:13
if you've like got a small website and
17:15
like
17:16
uh, you know, Google is is fine. Like
17:18
use them too, but like you hear from
17:20
like some random like person that
17:22
promises like, I'm going to get you
17:24
premium CPMs. They're not. So, just like
17:26
don't don't don't just don't don't fall
17:28
for that. So, I kept my promise, right?
17:30
Which was?
17:32
More money.
17:33
Uh, yeah, you did make us more.
17:36
What are Yeah, Matt, outside of you
17:38
know, just like putting this stuff into
17:40
place, what are some things you do like
17:42
tactically to increase session time, the
17:45
number of sessions, like any any hacks
17:47
that have worked to just optimize the
17:48
website to get more time on site, more
17:50
page views, etc.?
17:53
Um, like if if the goal is to like
17:55
maximize advertising revenue, that's
17:56
typically like you don't focus on that
17:58
stuff. It's more you focus on like ad
18:00
placement and like which ads are
18:03
showing. Like that's really the thing to
18:04
optimize. Like like you should like
18:08
like yeah, like you want to send people
18:10
back to your website from your email
18:11
list, but there's not a whole lot of
18:12
magic to that. Like the magic is like
18:15
when you turn on the interstitial ads
18:16
and then you like double your ad
18:17
revenue. Like
18:19
um, like that there's like an ad unit
18:21
that shows up in between pages, like
18:23
makes a ton of money, like at least for
18:24
us.
18:25
Um,
18:27
so like just having the right placements
18:28
and working with your your team to like
18:30
put the ads in the right places. Like
18:32
that is that's like the big unlock.
18:34
>> Yeah, well, tell us about that a little
18:35
bit more because a lot of people know
18:37
what placements are making the most
18:39
money. So, like a What did you call that
18:40
placement? Like inner what?
18:42
>> In interstitial. Interstitial.
18:43
>> Maybe it's got a different name. I don't
18:44
know, Gavin.
18:45
>> Yeah. Uh, Gavin, you know how that
18:46
works? Can you break that down for us?
18:48
Yeah, it's interstitial or vignette is
18:51
the alternative term for it. Uh,
18:54
but effectively it works as Matt
18:56
described. Someone's browsing through
18:57
your site, especially if you have a a
18:59
high-engagement site where people view
19:01
multiple pages, an ad can show up in
19:04
between page views, and it often gets a
19:07
good click-through and a high RPM. Um,
19:10
but I think one thing that that people
19:12
also maybe don't understand is
19:15
you can control these ads with your ad
19:16
provider. You can show exactly what kind
19:19
of ad placements and formats that you
19:21
want or don't want to. So, it's not all
19:24
or nothing. Uh, it's there's really a
19:26
lot of customization there to to really
19:28
match your goals with your audience.
19:31
Yeah, there's there's a new format
19:33
called rewarded content. Ezoic has it.
19:35
Google has it. Um, but like let's say
19:38
you have like premium content behind a
19:40
paywall, you can have people like watch
19:42
a 30-second ad and then unlock it for
19:43
them. Um, that's a kind of great format
19:46
to to make money uh, as well.
19:50
Yeah, that's cool. Kind of like gamify
19:51
getting access to more articles by
19:53
watching that kind of like you see with
19:55
gaming but in a in a content context.
19:58
Matt, how do you think about just in
19:59
general like a durable audience
20:03
monetization model? Because you you make
20:05
a lot of different money you know think
20:06
money in a lot of different ways. Um
20:08
like what what what do you think's going
20:09
to work long-term? Cuz programmatic is a
20:11
a big part of your business but like how
20:13
does it all work together?
20:15
Yeah, um like if you're going to do a
20:17
media business you you really need like
20:19
10 different ways to make money from
20:21
your audience. Um so it could be like
20:23
programmatic is one way. Um like
20:26
affiliate relationships might be five
20:27
ways cuz you have five affiliates. Um
20:29
you might have your own products. You
20:32
might have like ads from Beehiive. Um
20:35
but like the whole whole business is
20:37
like gather the attention of an audience
20:39
and then point that audience in
20:41
different directions to monetize them.
20:43
So like one of the directions is point
20:44
back to your website get them to click
20:46
on ads. My some of it might be to click
20:48
on ads directly in your newsletter. Some
20:49
of it might be to come to your like live
20:51
events. Some of it it might be to I
20:53
don't know. It's just you just need like
20:55
a lot of different ways to make money.
20:57
Um so that way you can afford to go
20:59
gather the attention and like do paid
21:00
ads to grow your lists. And then point
21:04
you know make money that way. Yeah. And
21:06
how did you start monetizing originally
21:07
with MarketBeat? Maybe you talked about
21:09
this earlier but I missed it.
21:10
>> I mean originally it was like Google
21:11
AdSense. And [snorts] then like I had
21:14
gotten like kicked out of Google News so
21:16
many times it was like this this is
21:17
stupid. Like I need a better strategy
21:19
than this. Um
21:20
so I got kicked out cuz we were doing
21:22
automated content and they didn't like
21:23
that. So then we just kept making new
21:24
sites and they kept getting kicked out
21:26
and I thought that I got to figure out a
21:27
better strategy here. So then I was like
21:29
okay, I'm just going to get everybody to
21:31
sign up for an email list and then like
21:33
after even I get kicked out again I'll
21:35
still have like the ability to contact
21:36
these people. And like initially like
21:38
this was 2012 so like who knows how to
21:41
monetize an email list in 2012? Nobody.
21:44
Uh so we made like a premium newsletter
21:46
made money that way. And then it wasn't
21:48
until like 2015 when I met the good
21:51
people over at Investing Media Solutions
21:53
and they said you know oh you can
21:54
actually like run advertisements in your
21:57
email for financial publishers and and
21:59
make good money doing that. So then
22:01
that's that's really kind of blew up our
22:02
business over time and it's kind of
22:04
still our core bread and butter and over
22:06
time we we've
22:08
expanded to different things. Like we
22:09
get paid to have our content in Yahoo
22:11
Finance and um we get you to make money
22:13
on your YouTube channel and like
22:16
you just lots of different ways.
22:18
Yeah, you said it took like seven years
22:20
to figure out your business model. And I
22:22
think was that when you you got in touch
22:23
with Investing Media Solutions? Like
22:24
that was kind of one of the first
22:26
moments when you really figured out the
22:27
the business model?
22:28
>> Yeah, it was like 2015 we we I bought
22:30
the MarketBeat name and like started
22:32
using that. Uh we really figured out the
22:34
email thing monetizing it from email and
22:36
then like from there we got we just got
22:38
better at it over time. Yeah.
22:41
I um I want to get to Q&A in a minute so
22:43
you can everybody here can ask questions
22:44
for Gavin and Matt. Um one or two more
22:46
questions before we wrap up. Gavin, is
22:48
there any advice that you want to share
22:51
for publishers who are skeptical about
22:53
investing more into the website? And
22:55
then for for everybody is there anything
22:56
you feel like we missed that we should
22:57
have covered questions I should have
22:59
asked you?
23:00
Well, I think for for people on the web
23:03
we've been doing this for over a decade
23:05
and we've worked with tens of thousands
23:06
of sites so we've seen trends come and
23:08
go.
23:09
And I know a lot of people on the web
23:11
have been afraid of traffic going down
23:13
with LLMs and all that stuff. And you
23:16
can still get traffic from Google and
23:18
LLMs but
23:20
what you need when we talk about a
23:22
durable model is web publishers need to
23:24
have diversified traffic sources.
23:27
So you can have some organic but we're
23:28
very focused on people who have these
23:30
owned audiences like SMS and
23:33
newsletters.
23:34
But I also encourage you to think about
23:36
where else you can drive traffic from.
23:38
Social's big Pinterest, Facebook,
23:40
YouTube. Uh these are all channels that
23:43
you need to think about and diversify if
23:45
you want to stay relevant and have
23:47
people find you from multiple places.
23:49
And then once you have that consistent
23:51
audience you can monetize it in a
23:52
variety of ways. Um so yeah, I think
23:55
people that are having the most success
23:57
today they are not focusing in one lane
24:00
but they are combining the best elements
24:03
of of everything in traffic and
24:05
monetization.
24:06
Matt, any any final
24:09
thoughts on this or one more thing you
24:11
wanted to cover that you feel like we
24:11
missed?
24:13
I'd say no.
24:15
Fair enough. All right. Um Dylan's going
24:17
to come up with his mic. I'm going to
24:18
come down and uh if you have a question
24:20
raise your hand high so I can I can find
24:22
you. And uh we'll do some Q&A.
24:34
I'm going to pass to Mike.
24:35
Hey, uh Matt that was great. Um
24:39
we're we manufacture uh leather goods
24:43
high quality leather goods and we're
24:44
around 300,000 in sales and top line per
24:47
month.
24:48
And my mindset lately is just just keep
24:52
the gas going until we get to a million
24:54
per month to not diversify too much. But
24:58
my tendency is that I always want to be
24:59
diversifying and and trying different
25:01
things and um not having all my eggs in
25:04
one basket.
25:06
Listening to what you're saying right
25:07
now diversification being durable have
25:10
different income streams. Um when do you
25:13
think is a good time
25:15
to switch and start diversifying into
25:17
different uh income streams?
25:20
Yeah, I'm kind of a a big fan of the
25:22
Hermozie idea of more better new. Like
25:25
if you can do more of what you're doing
25:26
now like that's kind of the first growth
25:28
growth lever. Like if you know my you
25:31
know if you're spending 10 grand a month
25:33
on on Facebook and it's going well like
25:35
try 20 and just do more. Like and then
25:38
when you when it stops working then you
25:39
figure out how to do what you do better
25:41
and then like finally the last thing is
25:43
like okay, let's do something new. Um
25:46
like once you really cap stuff out. So
25:48
I'm really a fan of just trying to like
25:51
knowing what works now just doing more
25:52
of it until it stops working. And then
25:54
like that's the time you move on to the
25:55
next thing.
25:57
All right, we're going to go right here
25:57
to Nathan.
26:00
Um what's up, man? Appreciate the the
26:02
shout earlier. Um
26:04
I would love to hear a little bit about
26:05
like I specifically in fin pubs like
26:08
what are some of the offers that are hot
26:12
right now because I it seems like
26:14
there's some that come in and out of
26:16
vogue. And how do people get in to those
26:18
offers? The ones that do do really
26:20
really well.
26:20
>> Like the financial media stuff or
26:22
>> Yeah, exactly the affiliate stuff. Yeah.
26:24
Thank you Nathan May from The Feed Media
26:26
Group a premier Facebook media buyer.
26:30
Um so right now so like in financial
26:33
publishing whatever is hot like whatever
26:36
offer's hot is the one that's kind of
26:37
tied to the the big macro story in the
26:40
market. So like this year the biggest
26:43
story is going to be like the SpaceX
26:44
IPO. It'll be the first trillion dollar
26:47
IPO ever. Um everybody wants to get in
26:51
on it. People are trying to find ways to
26:53
get SpaceX stock before it goes public
26:55
cuz the assumption is that it's going to
26:57
pop, right?
26:58
So like some of the financial newsletter
27:00
publishers like there's this guy named
27:01
Jeff Brown with Brownstone Research
27:03
Group. Uh he's part of MarketWatch which
27:05
was a spin-off of Agora. Uh he's got a
27:08
big like newsletter promotion about that
27:10
right now and it is crushing it. Like
27:13
they are going to write us a $500,000
27:15
check next month from the sales we
27:16
generated for that offer. Like it is the
27:18
best one we've seen in 2 years. Um so
27:21
it's like anything SpaceX related right
27:22
now is awesome. Like the Elon Musk stuff
27:25
in general kind of comes and goes or
27:26
like when he's in the news or not. Um
27:29
like when there's another presidential
27:31
election that'll be the big story. So
27:33
these days it really follows the news.
27:35
And like if you want to like promote
27:38
these offers like
27:39
initially like most people won't give
27:41
you the time of day cuz like unless they
27:43
know you can generate sales they just
27:45
don't want to waste time with you.
27:46
Um so really you have to start out
27:48
through an agency like Investing Media
27:50
Solutions where like they have access to
27:52
all of the offers and like no you're not
27:54
going to get the best best price per
27:56
sale but like you at least you get
27:58
access to the inventory and then like
28:00
when you prove that like yes I can
28:02
actually generate some sales for whoever
28:04
for Stansberry Research or Brownstone or
28:07
Paradigm Presser any of those people
28:09
like then you can go get that direct
28:10
relationship.
28:12
All right, we're going to go all the way
28:13
over here left side of the room. Hey,
28:14
excuse my ignorance on this. Uh this is
28:16
all fairly new to me. But we have a
28:18
hyper local media brand so uh
28:20
newsletters in very local uh locations
28:23
bedroom communities 300,000 people. Um
28:26
and we want our ad set to reflect that.
28:28
So are there companies like Zoic or
28:30
others that will do media buys for hyper
28:32
local versus you know national brands
28:34
and whatnot?
28:37
When you say media buys do you mean can
28:39
you just expand on that?
28:40
>> I don't know actually what I'm talking
28:41
about. But like uh
28:44
any any of the ways that you talked
28:45
about monetization on the click through
28:47
and stuff like we don't want to be
28:48
advertising national brands in what's
28:50
designed as a hyper local newsletter.
28:52
Oh, so you want more curated local
28:54
>> Yes. Yeah.
28:56
Well, one of the things that modern ad
28:58
companies can do now is you can actually
29:01
limit or show more of what you want to
29:04
show. Uh so if you have like a specific
29:07
content or category that you want
29:09
displayed on your site that's something
29:11
that that we could work with you on. For
29:13
example, um but for you know local
29:17
newsletters or publications you're going
29:19
to
29:20
probably have the most success going
29:21
direct directly to local advertisers.
29:24
And if you want to do something on top
29:25
of that that's where where we could
29:27
help.
29:29
All right, we got time for about two
29:30
more questions. We'll go in the middle
29:31
to Colby.
29:34
Oh, you're Colby. Hi. Uh I'm Adam
29:36
Shapiro I'm with Subtext. And
29:38
>> um I have been on a quest to be able to
29:40
assign a dollar value to an SMS user and
29:43
then you put up a slide that says 10
29:45
times to 20 times and you're my new best
29:47
friend. Um You're welcome. How do you
29:51
How Why is that person more valuable
29:54
over SMS than they are over email? Uh
29:56
thank you Adam Shapiro from Subtext, a
29:58
premier SMS service.
30:01
I am shameless. Well,
30:03
you know, there's a lot less competition
30:05
in the SMS inbox than there is the email
30:07
inbox. Like people get fewer texts from
30:09
brands than they do emails. So it's more
30:12
of a blue ocean. Um you know, they all
30:15
open rates on SMS is like 90% cuz people
30:17
open their SMSs unless you get filtered
30:20
like people see them. Um you have to
30:22
take more steps to sign up to SMS. So
30:24
like to get on our SMS list you got to
30:27
like give us your phone number and then
30:28
you got to click on a confirmation text
30:30
like it's actually kind of hard to do.
30:31
So like the engagement is higher, higher
30:34
open rates, less competition, all that
30:36
stuff.
30:37
All right, we got time for two more.
30:39
Okay, we're we're going to do one.
30:41
Do quick over there. I got one more over
30:42
here, but we'll have time if you want to
30:44
hang out and get Everyone's staying out
30:45
afterwards, we can do Q&A offstage.
30:49
So Matt, you mentioned 10 ways to
30:52
monetize your media business.
30:54
If you were starting your media business
30:56
from scratch today,
30:58
how would you order your monetization
31:00
channels and why? What What What What
31:02
niche are you in?
31:04
Um newsletters. But I'm I'm curious from
31:07
your personal experience.
31:08
>> Okay, but like Like what What's your
31:10
newsletter about?
31:12
Local businesses in Austin.
31:14
Okay.
31:15
Oh, yeah.
31:17
Um
31:18
If I'm you, I would probably go focus on
31:20
sponsorships like
31:22
like go find your your buddy that's got
31:24
whatever Austin restaurant that you want
31:26
to drive business to. Like if you're
31:28
local like go find the local advertiser
31:30
that you can drive value to today.
31:32
Um cuz like if you have the local
31:34
audience then go drive business to a
31:36
local business and like that's where I
31:38
would start.
31:40
All right, last question before we wrap
31:42
up.
31:45
I'm with Britannica and we have a
31:47
substantial amount of traffic that goes
31:49
to our websites every day and we care
31:51
immensely about user
31:54
trust and integrity.
31:56
Um
31:57
and I'm just curious like you mentioned
32:00
several different ways to monetize.
32:01
There's a wide spectrum of more
32:03
aggressive to least aggressive like
32:05
sending five emails a day as
32:06
interstitial ads etc. How do you and
32:08
your company strike that balance to
32:11
where you say, "Okay, this is the right
32:12
medium. We're not um
32:14
uh
32:15
crossing a line with our users to where
32:17
they want to unsubscribe, but they still
32:19
feel like they're getting a quality
32:20
experience?"
32:24
Who are you asking there?
32:27
You start.
32:29
Well, [clears throat]
32:31
one of the things that that we look at
32:32
in in our company is something called a
32:34
called ad density.
32:36
Um so what Ezoic does is it measures the
32:39
the ads on the page with the amount of
32:41
content and it balances all that in with
32:44
the user experience. Uh so one of the
32:46
things that we often find is when
32:50
let's say
32:51
another website comes to us that was
32:53
using a previous ad provider that
32:55
perhaps was a bit aggressive and we've
32:56
seen those experiences before.
32:58
Uh but over time our system will balance
33:01
out the ads and allow you to earn more
33:03
with fewer ads over time. Um so that's
33:06
one of the metrics that we look at. Uh
33:08
but ultimately, you know, you have the
33:10
you set the goals on on how aggressive
33:12
you want to be. Are you revenue focused
33:13
or you user experience focused and then
33:16
you can kind of choose how you want to
33:17
customize that.
33:19
And uh you know, Matt has set that up to
33:20
his own specs. Yeah, I I think there's
33:23
like this expectations game of like what
33:25
do your users expect like
33:27
the experience to be and like as long as
33:29
you're matching kind of that experience
33:31
like in finance like the ads are
33:33
aggressive, the emails are aggressive,
33:35
but like that's the industry. So like
33:36
that's everybody's like that to some
33:38
extent. So like in finance people expect
33:41
there to be lots of ads cuz it's like
33:42
news content with ads around it. And
33:44
like you monetize through ads. Like
33:46
people expect lots of emails cuz the
33:48
stock market changes all the time. So
33:50
it's really like who is my audience?
33:52
What do they care What do they actually
33:54
care about versus like what they say
33:55
they care about and like what are they
33:57
expecting the experience to be? And like
33:59
as long as you're not like
34:01
as like Like one thing that like
34:02
violates like people's experience
34:04
expectations is like there's this tool
34:06
called retention.com where like we'll
34:07
get somebody's email address even though
34:10
they didn't type it into your website
34:11
then you can email them and say, "Hey,
34:13
saw you came to MarketBeat. Uh you
34:15
should stick around." Like that is a
34:16
violation of the expectations cuz if the
34:19
person didn't give me their email
34:20
address, they obviously don't want me to
34:22
email them. So like understanding like
34:24
what those expectations are of like
34:26
privacy and experience and then just
34:28
kind of matching your experience to what
34:30
your users expect and and like things go
34:32
pretty well then.
34:33
All right. Gavin, Matt, this is great.
34:36
Thank you. Thank you.
34:38
>> [cheering]