Monetize Your Website Content

Flittz is an easy and convenient way for anyone to purchase a-la-carte, bite-size pieces of news content from U.S. and Canadian news publishers. After signing up just once, Flittz allows readers purchase articles, videos, podcasts, and more from news publications they wouldn't buy a long-term subscription from because of where they're located or because a lack of interest in a long-term commitment. Built especially for the news publishing industry, Flittz provides publishers with a powerful way to sell their content and gain valuable insight into the interests of their readers, all the while optimizing their subscription strategies and earning them incremental revenue with no increase in content production costs.

Flittz is not an application or a 3rd party website. Rather, it resides on a news publication’s website and fits in easily with the way most of us consume media -starting on Google or Facebook, searching for or casually coming across interesting content. 99.9% of readers will never subscribe when hit with a paywall. They just flit away, bouncing off your website. That’s where Flittz comes in. It allows anyone to buy a single piece of content for whatever price the publisher sets — usually for pennies on the dollar — without fumbling around for passwords or credit card numbers.

Flittz allows you to monetize one-off content with readers who are searching for a particular piece of content and, for a variety of reasons, are not interested in a longer-term relationship at the moment. These are the flitters, readers who flit from Facebook to Google looking for interesting content. They will never subscribe to, say, an out-of-market newspaper. But they will gladly pay a few cents, one-time, for an interesting article. Once the Flittz enabled relationship is established, it becomes an opportunity for the publisher to build on with the data and insights Flittz provides. With Flittz, publishers remain in control over their content and their distribution networks. Now it’s yours to determine whether it’s only available to subscribers, if it should be free to generate digital advertising revenue or if there’s a one-time pay that will generate incremental revenue for your publication.

The best part is that all Flittz data remains with you for you to better understand what interests your readers, how to provide a better reader experience and even how to motivate them to become subscribers. Flittz will redefine how publishers view content and its relationship with all of your organic traffic.

The Flittz Content Network will quickly become a conduit for best practices and additional areas of mutual benefit. Understanding reader behavior across the entire network will assist all network participants.

While publishers serve up some 200 million unique page views (and growing) each month, digital advertising revenues to local newspapers decreased by 2% in 2015. Why? Because publishers are getting paid less and less for every ad served up on their sites. The bulk of the revenue (up to 70%) goes to other advertising platforms—Facebook, Google and programmatic ad networks. Dependence on digital advertising revenue is not sustainable for publishers. Flittz is way to diversify your revenue strategy, with you in the driver’s seat.

Flittz does not compete against or disrupt a newspaper’s efforts to grow digital subscriber base. In fact, it can be customized to fit your subscription strategy—appearing only after a potential reader has declined to buy a subscription.

Our research has shown avid online readers are simply not prone to buying a subscription. Publishers know that less than one-tenth of 1% of the people who hit their pay walls end up subscribing. Flittz is a way to monetize 99.9% of the traffic that now flits away. Flittz enables publishers to engage people who would never otherwise become subscribers but who will gladly pay a reasonable price for interesting, one-off content, again and again and again. Flittz is about diversifying revenue, not replacing subscriptions.

Flittz is not an app. It is lightweight plug-in running on the publisher’s site.

Flittz does not resell stories. The stories remain under the complete control of the publisher on the newspaper’s website at all times. Publishers decide what content should be available to a Flittz user. Flittz is the equivalent of a single copy print purchase reimagined for the digital age. Publishers can generate revenue form the purchase of a single article from individuals not interested in a long-term commitment, all while on the publishers’ site.

Consumers are willing to pay for differentiated content they find interesting and valuable, just like consumers are willing to pay for On-Demand movies, and they have also been conditioned to buy content in smaller units from sites like iTunes, Netflix, and Hulu. Our research shows consumers are willing to pay for a story of interest if it costs less than a dollar. Remember, these readers aren’t randomly consuming your content – they searched for it or were redirected from social. They are prequalified buyers. The key is to make it easy and convenient to buy and make sure your content cannot be easily found elsewhere for free.

With the right investments in user experience, and analyzing reader data, publishers can monetize more content. We see a future where publishers are presenting readers with the option to buy the content the reader is most interested in with clean and simple user experiences.

Flittz is all about making small micropayments convenient to transact. We fit with established consumer behavior. After signing up once, Flittz customers can buy an article with a click of the mouse. No need to fumble for passwords, re-enter a credit card numbers or visit some third party site. Consumers can now buy content they searched for, right on your site. Is there anything more right for the times than that?

Marketing G2 is a thought leader in the industry and experts in customer engagement technology. Our portfolio of clients is a testimony to those statements. We're managing more than 30 million subscribers for newspaper publishers such as Gannett, Media News Group, Tronc and Advance today. We understand the idiosyncrasies of the newspaper industry and have built technologies to help publishers engage more readers and monetize content for over 14 years. Our position as a trusted advocate for the industry and a technology enabler for publishers makes us uniquely qualified to crack the code for monetizing one-off content. We are building a content network that captures incremental revenue for our publishing partners while providing them the data they need to become more valuable to their readers.

Absolutely. With Flittz, publishers are in complete control to price and monetize content. Have a high value supplement, video or special feature? Charge as much as you like for people to buy it. Want to test what an audience thinks is of most value? Adjust pricing to see when demand peaks. Or keep content free on Flittz as part of a larger strategy to optimize revenue, build engagement and capture subscribers.

Flittz was designed “mobile first” and works well on any platform or device. There is nothing for readers to download. When a reader is interested in a single piece of content, they are prompted once to enter their credit card number or other payment information and then never have to again. They buy on the fly. It’s on demand, and falls right in line with how consumers interact with content today.

Flittz does not replace your digital subscription strategy. Instead, it provides a way to diversify your revenue streams. It lets you capture data and revenue on the 99.9% of traffic that does not subscribe, so you can engage them again and again.

The power of platforms like Facebook and Google, which have become the launching pad for reader engagement, has resulted in newspapers losing control of content distribution. Readers who once looked for newspapers to curate content for them now rely on their Facebook friends to find the best content for them. Facebook and Google now know more about your readers than you do.

Flittz gives some of that control back to publishers. It provides the data you need to understand what content most interests your readers and what they find most valuable, so you are in a better position to optimize your product, enhance the reader experience and engage with them in meaningful ways. With Flittz you can analyze data from across the entire Flittz content network in order to gain a complete picture of reader preferences.

Flittz works for any kind of content. We are focused on newspapers because of our commitment to the industry and passion for supporting this vital institution. We also recognize the scale newspapers deliver and the value they deliver on that scale.

Flittz does not set the prices. The price for any single piece of content is set by the publisher, and the price can even be changed each time an article is served up. With Flittz, publishers can test new pricing models, perhaps charging more for an annual real estate or automotive guide. It’s all completely up to you!