Slovenčina Driving profit by producing high-quality content is every publication's dream. But in the age of ad skips and ever-shorter attention spans, it's a huge challenge — especially if your website isn't exactly set up to win beauty contests. The good news, though, is that it’s doable. Take the story of Prima Inspirace, a Czech hobby magazine that proves even a website with no specific focus on design or UX can significantly boost ad revenue and keep readers engaged.
Primainspirace.cz (which translates to Great Inspiration) is a Czech online magazine that brings a daily dose of recipes, home & gardening tips and inspiring guides. With 1.4 million readers monthly, Prima Inspirace is one of the most popular hobby websites on the Czech market. It's a place where ad tech meets content, and design decided not to show up. And yet, it’s raking in the revenue.
Even though Prima Inspirace saw constant growth in readership, they faced several challenges that many publishers know all too well:
- Their ad revenue was stagnating.
- Their website relied solely on traditional display ads from Google AdSense.
- Readers were not engaged and site visits bounced too soon.
- A slow website drove readers away.
- The traffic was heavily reliant on social media, making them vulnerable to changes in algorithm and reader behavior.
To strategically tackle these challenges, Prima Inspirace decided to broaden the scope of cooperation they had with FatChilli. We focused on what Prima Inspirace had – content that readers loved – and fine-tuned the site to perform at its best, technologically speaking.
Read further to discover how Prima Inspirace transformed their digital strategy from January 2023 to March 2024, leading to some impressive results:
➡️ Ad revenues increased by 500%.
➡️ Number of visitors grew by 63%.
➡️ Engagement time grew by 125%.
➡️ Page views increased by 20%.
➡️ Organic traffic grew by 227%.
LUKÁŠ NEUDERT
So how exactly did we do it?
First we looked at the website and analyzed it in detail. How is the website performing in terms of core web vitals? How are the ads performing? Where is the traffic coming from? How much time are people spending on the website? How deep are they scrolling?
Our specialists asked a lot of questions and found a couple of areas that needed improvement.
#1 Boosting site speed for happier readers
Faster websites make happier readers and are also loved by Google. Therefore, as step one, we dove into Core Web Vitals analysis, leading us to cut down on JavaScript and CSS bloat and reorganize how internal and external assets are loaded. This resulted in improved loading time, interactivity, and visual stability.
As a result, the reader experience on the site improved significantly. Readers stayed longer and read more articles, and gradually, the magazine's traffic began to increase. The enhanced reader engagement not only boosted the site's metrics but also contributed to better ad performance and higher revenue.
#2 Improving performance by upgrading hosting provider
Publications with a large audience need a hosting provider that is flexible and secure and which allows for further optimization. We moved Prima Inspirace from their old hosting setup to a VPS with OpenLiteSpeed to ensure better performance, flexibility, and scalability.
#3 Introducing a smart ad strategy for engaged readers
For a long time, Prima Inspirace relied solely on basic banner ads available in AdSense, which was problematic for a number of reasons:
→ There were ads everywhere, but none were performing well enough.
→ Readers skipped slow-loading ads.
→ Ads appeared randomly in inappropriate places.
→ There was only one format – banner ads.
→ It was impossible to set price floors for optimization of ads and brand protection.
Not surprisingly, this situation led to stagnating ad revenue and a high reader bounce rate. To diversify and increase revenue, our strategy focused on smart ad placements and formats.
Enter ProTag, FatChilli's in-house ad technology tailored to news publishers. Moving to Google Ad Manager instead of AdSense let us connect to new ad partners, not just Google (e.g. Sklik, specific to the Czech market). This allowed us to reduce the number of ad units and more importantly, introduce new ad formats.
Rewarded Ad: Readers are presented with the option to access the full article by watching a short video ad.
Rewarded Ads
Imagine this: Readers get access to premium content in exchange for watching a short video ad. This concept, which is popular in mobile gaming, where players watch an ad to earn an extra life, was adapted for Prima Inspirace. We applied it to their Related Articles, in order to turn casual readers into more engaged users.
Here’s how it works: All articles on Prima Inspirace are free to read, but when a reader wants to dive deeper and explore more than one article, they encounter a “soft paywall.” To unlock additional content, the reader simply watches a brief ad. This experience not only keeps readers engaged but also significantly boosts ad revenue.
In the case of Prima Inspirace, Rewarded Ads not only achieve substantially higher effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPM), but also contribute to 23% of the overall Google AdExchange revenue.
Comparative performance of eCPM for Rewarded ads versus Banner Ads on primainspirace.cz
In a nutshell, Rewarded Ads might be your next big thing, because:
- They achieve higher eCPM, which often surpasses that of even the best-performing display ads,
- They provide tangible benefits by driving higher engagement and, consequently, more conversions, and
- They are really simple to integrate into your existing ad framework.
- Read more about how publishers benefit from Rewarded Ads
Keeping readers hooked with similar content
When given the opportunity to read another similar article, most readers usually go for it. Related Articles are one great way to keep people longer on the website than they would have otherwise stayed. But there are other methods too.
We did a little experiment to find out. In our test, mobile users who were about to leave the website and pressed the Back button were offered similar content instead of immediately going back in the browser or to Google Discover.
Small changes led to big results. Thanks to Related Articles and similar content, the engagement time grew by 125% and the bounce rate dropped by 4%.
Just as the Reporter magazine successfully transitioned from print to digital, embracing new strategies to win over readers, Prima Inspirace leveraged its existing content to enhance digital engagement and significantly boost ad revenue.
Out-stream video ads
Initially, Prima Inspirace worked only with banner ads. Given the fact that video is currently the most popular format (in 2022, video made up 82% of all global internet traffic) and readers are more likely to click on a video ad than a text banner, we introduced out-stream video ads. The advantage is that these ads don’t require the website to have its own video player.
Thanks to this more comprehensive and diversified ad strategy, Prima Inspirace increased its ad revenues by 500%.
#4 Bringing readers content they love
Initially, Prima Inspirace relied mainly on traffic from social media, which isn’t ideal for a number of reasons. Social media prefers clickbaity content, while disregarding other relevant content. Readers coming from social media consume less content than people coming from organic search. Plus, when social media algorithms change, audiences can drastically drop.
We dug into the data to figure out what readers loved most and shared our insights with the editors. By focusing more attention on creating good-quality content rather than clickbaity and incorporating SEO into writing, we helped drive organic traffic up by 227%, cutting down on their need to chase social media clicks.
This approach didn’t just bring in more readers — it also motivated the editorial team. Seeing the direct impact of their work on the magazine’s success got them more engaged and invested in creating even better content.
Here’s the summary of our results:
➡️ The ad revenues shot up by 500% — thanks to brand new ad formats and strategic placements.
➡️ Readers grew by 63%, and stuck around longer, exploring more of the website.
➡️ Reader engagement time jumped by 125%, showing that readers were more hooked than ever.
➡️ Page views increased by 20%.
➡️ Organic traffic grew by 227%.
What’s next for Primainspirace?
Now that we’ve established a new, solid foundation, we’re working on the next big thing – implementation of REMP, or Reader Engagement & Monetization Platform. This will provide Prima Inspirace with advanced tools for user segmentation, marketing automation, on-site and off-site engagement, and real-time performance analytics. Using REMP, the magazine will be able to target the right content to the right audience at the right time.
To offer a more flexible experience for readers, we're also creating an “Offerwall” that allows readers to choose how they want to unlock content – namely, by paying, watching an ad, subscribing to a newsletter, or other options.
Your turn to shine?
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If you’re a publisher wanting to boost your revenue and make readers more engaged, get in touch with us at [email protected].
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