AdGate, a paywall funded by advertisers, launches
Australian media technology company Winr has launched an advertiser-funded paywall to support publishers and supplement the decline in the performance of display ads.
AdGate paywalls appear part-way through an article and ask a reader to unlock the rest of the article by engaging with it.
AdGate’s paywalls appear as interactive ads
Perry Lyndon-James, Winr’s co-founder and head of product, explained AdGate is a win-win-win for every party involved.
“At the heart of our innovation is the belief that there can be a win-win-win transaction for brands, publishers and consumers. Brands find more value in engagement than impressions, so that is what we have enabled. Advertisers only pay when a user has engaged which means our content and ads are one hundred percent viewable. What we’ve created is a simple value exchange, but the potential impact is enormous for publishers and advertisers alike,” he said.
The paywalls can come in a number of different formats based on the interaction required from the reader. Winr provides a creative template for the advertiser or agency to complete. It then builds the interactive element on its Ad Manager platform.
Creative from a brand’s social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, can also be repurposed for AdGate.
The ads are then embedded on publishers’ articles.
For a reader, interactions may include answering a question with a single click, or sliding a sponsored unlock button.
Over the past 12 months, Next Media, Interplay Media, Budget Direct and Balmain have worked with Winr to benchmark and test AdGate. It found that on average, the paywalls delivered higher yields for publishers and 15 to 20 times higher engagement than conventional display ads.
Aside from Interplay and Next Media, publishers which have adopted the new technology include Macro Business, Action Media Partners (Auto Action), Tribal Football, Rugby News, and Gamurs Group.
Marcelo Ulvert, co-founder and CEO of Winr, said AdGate is a solution to the difficulties faced by the publishing industry.
“Ongoing media redundancies and a significant drop in ad spend over the last few months suggest we’re approaching something of a crossroads for the future of journalism,” Ulvert said.
“Research shows conventional paywalls are not a solution for the masses, with less than one in ten Australians willing to pay for news. Our goal is to support the positive evolution of digital publishing, get more money into the ecosystem and ensure quality journalism remains accessible for all despite how it is monetised.”
I don’t know if it’s really engagement if the content is essentially held to ransom from the user. Either they will click the button, slide the slider or whatever while ignoring the message entirely or they will get pissed off at the advertiser for doing this to them.
Forcing people to see your ad doesn’t count as engagement in my books. True engagement only happens when people enjoy the ad experience, either through great creative or an interesting execution.
I wouldn’t recommend my clients use this product, will be interesting to see how they go.
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