Dana VanDen Heuvel: Pheed Read #3 - RSS Feeds Provide Untapped Advertising Audience

May 17, 2006

Pheed Read #3 - RSS Feeds Provide Untapped Advertising Audience

It's been a few months since the last Pheedo Pheed Read report! For those of you who've been watching, the RSS marketplace has grown and matured in just a few short months.

As usual, there's lots of data to share in this Pheed Read. We'll cover a few highlights here, but if you're interested in the full details, please download the Pheed Read Spring 2006 Report here.

Executive Summary

As the RSS publishing and advertising marketplace evolves, it is important to monitor the indicators such as click-through rates, which are normalizing; RSS ad performance, which remains strong; and most importantly, how RSS consumers are interacting with feed content.
Advertisers and publishers need to engage the RSS consumer at the aggregator or feed reader level. That's where the relationship is -- not at the website. Hoping for a click-through by publishing summary feed content is not a viable content monetization strategy in an RSS-enabled publishing model. This is good news for publishers who are evaluating opportunities for RSS feed advertising, and good news for advertisers seeking to reach information consumers in this growing channel.

Full-Text Feeds and Summary Feeds Garner Similar Click-Through Rates (CTR)

Summary feeds (full content not shown in the feed item) average at 12% CTR while full-text feeds average 10% CTR. The report states that the median CTR for full-text feeds remains at 10% while summary feeds drop to 8% CTR due to extremely high CTR rates in certain categories and individual feeds.

Consumers Remaining Within Aggregator / News Reader Environment To View RSS Content
90% of RSS consumers opt to read the feed content entirely in the aggregator environment, regardless whether they are viewing full or partial feeds. This presents a tremendous opportunity to monetize the feed content at the feed reader or aggregator point of consumption.

Standalone Ads Continue to Outperform Inline Ads

Holding true to the December 2005 "Pheed Read," standalone RSS ads continue to outperform inline ads. Standalone ads average a 2.76% CTR while inline ads average .45%.

We took another look at the click-through rate of various modes of RSS ad placement. We noticed some significant fluctuation from the last report, as evidenced in the chart below.

The "Pheed Read" is released quarterly by Pheedo and details trends in RSS usage. In addition to the âPheed Read,â Pheedo provides analytics capabilities that allow publishers to view detailed feed usage information about their feeds.

For a complete PDF copy of the Pheedo Pheed Read, click here to download.

[Full Disclosure: I work for Pheedo]