Refer to the project brief and the additional resources before you begin this project!

(Go through them at least 3 times or till the time you don’t have a mind map in your brain)

Let’s begin!

Define your ICP and Product

(Before you begin, you need to know what your product is, what are its features, and what is the problem being solved by your product?)

(build your ICP's- by now you know how to do that in a tabular format as done in earlier projects and segment the users, think about why you are segmenting and what is the goal of your product and segmentation)

Monetization litmus test

(Conduct the litmus test for your product)

Retention Graph

The retention curve is, therefore, a smiling retention curve.

Depth of Engagement

Core Users - Higher depth of Engagement as they are Onboarded with all our core solutions - Header Bidding , Ad Layout Optimization, Ad Block Recovery.

Power Users - Moderate Depth of Engagement as they are onboarded with our two primary solutions - Header Bidding and Ad Layout Optimization.

Casual Users - Low depth of Engagement as they only need help with increasing the bid for auction from premium demand partners.

Willingness to Pay

Conclusion: As per the above analysis, ICP 2 and ICP 3 should be monetised first.

How much would they pay for the product?

15% - 25% of the net revenue increased every month

Will it be a lifetime or recurring purchase?

Commission-based, so recurring purchase every month.

What would make them pay more?

Integrate more products (increase depth of engagement) would help them increase more revenue, enabling us to charge a charge a higher comission

Product is already monetizing

Up-Selling and Cross-Selling Experiments

Cross-sell Experiments

Campaign 1 : Power User to Core User

Cross-sell Feature: recovery of revenue lost due to ads, sustainable revenue to publishers, only whitelisted ads, no disruption to UI

Asset: Call or In-Person meet

Marketing Pitch: Recover Lost Revenue, Without Disrupting User Experience

Aha Moment: Percentage of 15-day revenue lost recovered due to ad block solutions tracked in the dashboard after going live

Value Created: 20% of ad revenue lost due to ad block solution recovered in a 30-day time frame.

Campaign 2 : Casual User to Power User

Cross-sell Feature: High bid pressure, custom content, custom conten logic, lightweight video files
Asset: Email

Marketing Pitch: Grow competition for your ad inventory through Video Ads

Aha Moment: % of ad revenue increased in 30-day time frame compared to the last 30 day period tracked on console after going live

Value Created: 25% increase in net-30 revenue from ads

Up-Sell Experiments

Campaign 1 : Power User to Core User

Up-sell: 30% of traffic to 60% of traffic

Asset: Email

Marketing Pitch: Our Header Bidding Platform offers precise control over auctions, enabling selective bidder management for maximum yield.

Aha Moment: Higher bid, resulting in increased 15-day revenue compared to the last 15-day period tracked in console after increasing the traffic %.

Value Created: 15% increase in net-30 ad revenue compared to last 30 days on the same 60% of traffic.

Campaign 2 : Casual User to Power User

Up-sell: 20% of traffic to 40% of traffic

Asset: In-person meet

Marketing Pitch: Our header bidding solution considers bids for all the ad unit sizes that can fit within the ad container that is being bid on.

Aha Moment: Higher bid, resulting in increased 30-day revenue compared to the last 30-day period tracked in console.

Value Created: 15% increase in net-30 ad revenue compared to last 30 days on the same 60% of traffic.

Pricing Page

(Understand the existing user discovery flow for pricing and try to understand why things are being done they are currently)

Pricing Page Design

(Step 1 - Analyze the existing pricing page objectively)

(Step 2 -Re-design the Pricing Page)

(Step 3- Add reasoning for the same)

We hope this helped you break the cold start problem!

Reminder: This is not the only format to follow, feel free to edit it as you wish!

Delete the boilerplate once you've made your project

Current Pricing Page

What's working?

• Middle Option Bias.
• Features the users will get access to in each of the plans.
• Subscription-based pricing depending on solutions integrated into the website.

What's not working?

• Currently, only the value the plan creates is communicated to the prospects. There is no clarity on how much they are expected to pay.
• There is no clarity on perceived value vs. perceived price.
• Time to purchase from price discovery is high because multiple discovery calls are required to communicate the output users will see post onboarding with AdPushup.
• Drop-off after price discovery is high as there is a notion that the users will always be charged at the highest bracket of the plan.

Redesigning the Pricing Page

Ideally, the pricing page should have:

How are we charging?

1. Is it a want or need? It's a need
2. What is the first-purchase ticket size? 1000$
3. Time taken between product discovery and purchase? 45 - 90 days
4. Post-purchase gratification? There is no immediate post-purchase gratification
5. Is it a high-frequency use case? Yes, there's a considerably high-frequency use case, though it depends.
6. Is there a long-term purchase commitment? Yes, long-term commitment is required as we have bi-annual contracts.
7. Is there an appetite to pay for users? Yes! We qualify users basis their previous earning only.
   
   So, we should have an entirely subscription-based pricing strategy as there is no instant gratification involved and deep tech integration is required. Along with subscription, we would also explore on integrating more solutions

What problem will the new pricing page solve?

1. The new pricing page clearly communicates the features of each plan and who'd best benefit from it.
2. The commission charged in each of the plans is mentioned. The highest bracket in each of the plans is mentioned, ensuring that no users are under the misconception that they will always have to pay the highest commission in a given bracket.
3. Time to purchase vs. discovery will reduce as the users are now aware of which plan is best suited for them. The users and SDRs can now discuss the exact solution and the pricing with respect to that plan.
4. Drop-off after price discovery is expected to reduce as now they know the range of commission they are supposed to pay in each of the plans.
5. The middle-option bias is still there. Since mid-market content creators are usually the best ICP for AdPushup (they are usually websites with 50,000 + monthly page views looking for increasing ad revenue from top-tier demands and easy data visualization) as per the ICP prioritization framework, we have placed it in the middle.

System 1 and 2 Design

Does AdPushup require a quick buying experience?

Since there is no instant ratification, the product doesn't require a quick buying experience.

Should a first-time buying vs. repeat buying experience look different?

Yes! During first-time buying, users will be more concerned about perceived value vs. perceived pricing, integration, product capabilities, features, etc. , while during repeat buying experience users will be primarily looking for value and a quick buying experience.

Which System is Better Suited for AdPushup?

We would be using system 2 design for first-time users, while for users who would upgrade to more of our solutions we will use system 1. For example, we should ideally use system 2 for someone who is a first use going onboar with our Header Bidding solution. After being content with our Header Bidding solution, if the content creator decides to upgrade to our AdBlock Recovery solution, we should optimise for system 1.

End of Project

Substitute Pricing

Work on the following aspects:

1. What are your customers paying for?
   
   Content creators or web publishers are our customers. They are paying us for maximizing yield from every single ad impression on their website using a single platform, that is they are paying us for . AdPushup's platform gives the power to optimize for audience engagement and ad revenue. Our partnerships with top-tier ad exchanges allow us to reduce barriers of entry and bring the best global brands, campaigns, and ads to our publisher partners.
   
2. How does your product stand out?
   
   Quick Integration
   Continuous Optimization
   Easy payments
   Dedicated Account Manager
   Google Policy Compliance
   
3. How do you position your product?

AdPushup is hand-picked by Google for its track record of helping publishers succeed using value added services and technology, offering superior interaction and expert consulting, and maintaining a reputation for prioritizing a healthy advertising ecosystem.

4. Competitor Analysis
   

Monetization design

Add an introduction for monetization connecting it to your Litmus Test and User Insights)

Who to charge?

(Conduct an RFM Analysis and identify the users that you are monetizing and think about why them and not others?)

Total users - 1200

The users we are currently monetizing are

• Champions
  Founders, Co-founders, Owners
  Arbitragers
  Editors
  
• Loyal Customers
  Founders, Co-founders, Owners
  Blogger
  Arbitragers
  
• Potential Loyalists
  Head of Monetization, Head of Indirect Revenue, Head of Programmatic
  Head of Ad Operations and Head of Yield Management
  CRO

We are monetizing the above segments because they have the highest recency and frequency, resulting in a higher willingness to pay.

Elasticity of Churn Vs. Revenue Gain

Champions and potential loyalists are more likely to pay, thus churn will be less. This implies that revenue gain will be maximum from the 25% of the users, that is we are getting the maximum revenue from 300 users.

Out of Champions - Founders, Co-founders, and owners have the highest appetite to pay.
Out of Loyal Customers - Founders, Co-founders, Owners, and arbitragers have the highest appetite to pay.

Out of Potential Loyalists - Head of Monetization, Head of Indirect Revenue, and Head of Programmatic of mid-market and enterprise publishers have the highest appetite to pay.

When to charge?

(Calculate the Aha Moments and Happy Moments and the Perceived Value attached thereon, try to plot Perceived Value and Perceive Price on a graph )

Happy Moments

1. Access to Premium Demand Partners
2. Blazing Fast Ad Delivery
3. High Bid Competition
4. High eCPMs & Revenue
5. High Clickthrough Rates

Aha Moment

• Increase in net 30-day revenue from ads

Perceived Value and Perceive Price

Cnclusion - When do we charge

We charge a comission ranging between 15% to 25% after we are able to increase the net-30 revenue from ads. The comission charged will depend on how much revenue is increased in a 30-day cycle compared to the last 30-day period. The inflection point is when we are able to increase the revene than what they were already making when they signed up. We consider that to be our base number. As we keep increasing the revenue from the base number, we charge a comission basis the revenue increased in 30-day cycle. The revenue for the previous month becomes the base for the current month.

What to charge for?

(Identify what you're charging for- the core value and the currency for the product)

What is the core value proposition of the product?

We help content creators across the globe generate more revenue by connecting them to 50+ premium advertising exchanges, deploying cutting-edge ad serving technology, and providing hands-on ad operations expertise.

What do we charge for?

We primarily charge for Output and access. Here's how:

Output

Our Header Bidding Platform offers publishers precise control over auctions, enabling selective bidder management for maximum yield without compromising page vitals and browser resources, ensuring optimal deal performance. It also monitors and records all bids made by buyers, which can be reviewed by the publishers as well. The ML-enabled solution considers bids for all the ad unit sizes that can fit within the ad container that is being bid on. This creates a wider pool of bids and helps maximize the revenue for every single ad impression.

Access

1. Intuitive dashboard for access to all data points around ad impression and ad revenue
2. Deidctaed Account Managers to assist with everything from the on-boarding to providing everyday ad ops support and technical troubleshooting.

What is the currency that helps users do more of the core action?

Ad Impressions optimized daily, weekly, every two weeks, monthly.

How much to charge?

(Do your math and build 2-3 different pricing strategies and maximize your revenue)

Strategy 1

Sumit is an individual blogger who has just started monetizing his website traffic by selling his ad space. He is eager to connect with top-tier ad exchanges to increase bid prices. He needs a dedicated Ad Operations team to build rapport, enlist his website, and participate in real-time bidding.

Assuming that it'd require at least 2 people in the team, and their monthly salary would be INR 40,000 each per month. He needs to invest at least 80,000 to get the highest bid for his ad space.

Considering he is earning 5000$ per month, which is approximately 4 lakh a month, he needs to shell out at least 80, 000 on salary and a minimum of 50,000 per month as infrastructure expenses.

So, he needs to invest at least 1.3 lakhs a month just on his ad ops team. Alongside this, he has to maintain an SEO person and content writer.

Sumit could easily save 1.3 lakhs by just paying us 20% of his revenue which is 1000$ or 80,000 rupees per month to AdPusup and here's what he gets access to

1. Dedicated ad ops team
2. Dedicated customer support team
3. Access to 50+ top-tier ad exchanges and ad networks
4. Access to Google Ad Exchange
5. Managed Header Bidding
6. Unified revenue reporting
7. Consolidated net-45 payments

So, perceived value is almost 7X the perceived price as he is paying just 80,000 per month to us and with access to the best ad networks he can maximize traffic acquisition, while letting us manage his ad stack.

Strategy 2

Khaleej Times is one of the leading news publications in the Middle East. They have 2 million+ monthly page views, making 160,000$ in monthly revenue by selling their ad space to the leading ad exchanges.

They have a dedicated Ad Operations, Programmatic, and Engineering team to optimize their ad stack and ensure that they are getting the highest bid in real-time biddings through managed header bidding.

However, some readers use Ad Block solutions, which reduces the number of monthly ad impressions—resulting in a loss in revenue.

They are aware that Ad Block Recovery solutions exist in the market, but the current engineering team is not proficient in building and deploying the solution in the next 12 months.

Per their calculations, they are losing $ 20,000$ every month due to Ad Blockers, which is $ 240,000$ per year. Building a separate engineering team for this would be a loss in the short-run and not decent profit margins in the long-run too.

They could tie up with AdPushup and integrate their Ad Block Recovery solution, which would help them recover at least 30% of the revenue lost due to Ad Block. The 30% mark is among the highest success rates in the industry.

This implies they could easily recover 72,000$ per year and they just need to pay 20% of 72,000$ which is 15,000 USD to AdPushup every year. Here's what they get access to

1. Zero Impact on UX
2. Consent Control
3. A/B Testing and Optimization
4. Faster Ad Delivery

So, perceived value is almost 10X the perceived price as per monththey are paying just 15,000 USD to AdPushup and with access to the best Ad Block Recovery Solution, while hiring an engineer to build this product would cost them a minimum 150,000USD per year.

Pricing Table