In Affiliate Marketing on
In the following article, our experts with their 10+ years of experience will give you a comprehensive guide about Search feed monetization and its related topics.
Well, now when you already made it to “make your product work for themselves” content! Congratulations! 🔥 You probably have your product ready or packed with a worldwide audience to help you with monetization options.
Whether you are an app owner, an extension owner, media buyer, or almost any type of publisher – welcome! This blog will teach you everything you should know about search monetization and why you should give it a shot today.
A very popular way of Search monetization is actually being done on Browser Extensions. (For Chrome it is called Extensions, for Firefox it is add-ons)
Before everyone moved to mobile someone had to make money on desktop right? Well, that perfectly fits the picture of affiliate world that was promoting all kind of browser extensions heavily years ago. This is also very active now, but not comparable as let’s say 5 years ago.
All these extensions had to be powered with monetization – most common one was Search monetization. Prior digging into Search Feed monetization and all it’s benefits, let find out more about browser extensions.
Browser extensions are add-ons for your browser, and they give you additional options that your browser might not offer you by default. Most likely, you have heard the phrase “There’s an app for that,” well, we have to say that pretty much applies for browser extensions too, since they allow you to do so many things with your browser and to enhance user experience. For example, you can change the way tabs work, integrate your notes, get Gmail notifications, play games, translate text, grammar-check your writing and customize every New Tab of yours.
Nowadays, many extensions are a sub-product of a main product or app that is used on different devices, etc. They come in packs of website + app + extension. Examples of such products are:
Very simple – with your permission, extensions you install from the Chrome Web Store and Firefox Add-on Store can make changes to your browser settings. Most changes enhance your browsing experience and make using the extension easier. Changes can affect settings such as your homepage, new tab page, search engine, or start page.
Search monetization is one of the core monetization methods used by the majority of Extensions developers or publishers for years now. Though there are other methods as well, search monetization has proven itself as the most effective method. Not only that, but the most lucrative one, since extension owners are making revenue from users activity and engagement. We might even call it a “dream” due to the fact that passive income is desired by everyone in affiliate & performance marketing. That is exactly what extensions could offer to you. To reach that level, it is not easy, creating super friendly extension products that users are engaged with is not an easy task. Trust us, we tried, failed multiple times, then made it & we are still doing it – successfully.
Here is one example of Ecosia – The search engine that plants trees and how they do it:
This is how it looks on Firefox:
Except planting trees, they make an incredible amount of money since all the users who use it are also using Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine.
This is perfectly normal though, that is one of the core revenue models of browser extensions, and if you are thinking of doing it too after reading our fantastic blog – don’t think about how you are selling out. We were all there with thoughts such as: “I don’t want to disrupt the user experience”, “I don’t want to spam users” or, “They won’t like my product anymore if I put ads” – trust us, we were there. And from our experience – users will understand that you need resources. You need to maintain the product. You need to upgrade it – and that is when extension monetization comes in handy, and in the case of Ecosia, they do a wonderful thing too. Not only that but there is also a plethora of browser extensions with Search feed integration or another kind of monetization that offer great value for their users.
To get better understanding of other products doing it, feel free to check these extensions:
As we all use our browsers 24/7 of course we want to customize them per our needs and that is what extensions are for! They offer you the ability to change your browser settings and have a better, customized user experience. There is no need to emphasize that your product has to have a clear value to attract the user, and better more, accept using your product even if they have to make some changes in their browsing behaviour.
Luckily, we are Experts (with a big E) in this area and we can help you out. From this free advice to real monetization solutions, Coinis can help you scale up and reward yourself for all the hard work you have done when creating your amazing product. Whether you are working with Chrome, Firefox or Edge, we can jump in because we know the drill. Treat yourself – you deserve it, as well as your products.
Remember the example above with Ecosia? Well, Coinis is able to offer you same monetization solutions and MANY MORE!
As we mentioned before, the #1 monetization method is Search feed monetization. Most common search feeds used on all the browser extensions and add-ons are Bing & Yahoo!
Bing & Yahoo! get new users and search queries because of companies and developers who build Extension products. Obviously, Google does not need to pay extension owners to allow users to use Google search engine. They are already super dominant players, while Yahoo! and Bing have to, which is totally fine. This is one of the models of how, among other things, they stay in the game.
When developers/publishers are altering browser settings, they can change the users’ default settings, and thus the Search engine by adding a custom link. In this case, Coinis comes into the game since we have Search feed deals in place to offer extension monetization.
Though we must admit, over the years we ended up partnering up with extensions owners by helping them reach a worldwide audience. and in some cases acquiring products. Years of experience in this field led us to the right traffic sources and finding the right users for extensions. Active users are the ones who are helping you with this right?
So – to sum it up: You need to have a good search feed deal, or know a guy who can provide a good deal (feed) for you (“a guy” – how silly it is written “Coinis”). And preferably you need more users – again, we know how to do it.
On the other hand there is a new trend upcoming – Chat GTP. Many believe that this new AI tool is going to interfere with the search industry but there are also opinions that search engines still hold its value as they are made to provide a list of relevant links in response to a certain query. What do you think? Will it impact the search industry? Let us know.
There are two types of feed: SearchXML feed and Hosted Search. These are the options that are available out there, and you can test them both, but from our experience, the performance on Search XML Feed is lower. On the other hand, regularly hosted (direct) Bing or Yahoo, Yandex is a great option to go with:
XML feeds are known as the less performing ones in terms of revenue. These are being used by companies such as Ecosia and OceanHero. They are less performing from the advertisers’ side, since if you are a company advertising on Yahoo and Bing, it sounds logical that you care more about users who opted to REALLY use Yahoo! And Bing then Ecosia or OceansHero. That is why XML Search Pages are less performing and RPMs are lower.
In short, with search results through an XML feed, you are able to customize your search page result and add your own brand on it, meaning that partners must own and operate these sites, and manage their own search engine results pages.
These are pages that redirect straight to Yahoo! or Bing search page results that have accompanied IDs or name tags that help us (and search providers as well) identify where the traffic is coming from.
Search redirects are better options, because they offer a full Search Engine experience & all the ads that come along, while some might be missing in XML Search versions.
This is not a complicated thing to implement. By copying the provided code to your desired location on your extension you are ready to rumble.
There are two places where you can add Search feed monetization
2. Address bar / Omnibox – It redirects all the searches (in type) from it.
When adding this type of monetization on any of the placements you will see a window like this.
It is perfectly normal and it is being done for the sole protection of the users since in the past there have been attempts to lure users to install products that they might actually do not like, so Chrome and Firefox are double checking with the users if this what they wanted. Even though users may quit using your product, the one that are still using it are PURE 🥇!
When you kick off with Coinis & when our team after the compliance team checks and confirms that everything is good with your product, you may proceed and start monetizing your product with the proposed monetization solution..
Before you dive into it, you should get yourself familiar with how you are ACTUALLY making money.
We guess it seems pretty obvious. On the other hand, when you have a product that changes a default search engine to Yahoo or Bing, it means that every search the user makes is potentially taking them to some advertiser. So, another example is that the user types in “insurance deals in NY” and on their search results, organic results will be shown, but also ADS – Wuolah!
Whenever user click on some of these ads – you are making money!
You might be wondering, how is all this being tracked? No need to think too much since we got it all covered. All the stats are being tracked & they can be drilled down to every little piece you need.
Here is how it looks in our stats:
It all depends on the potential of the product. Remember, we are not here only to provide you monetization but to help you distribute the product and partner with you! Having said that, we (depending on potential again) have:
Search Monetization is a great way to earn passive income. It has proven to be a clean service that is highly popular among extension, app, and website owners worldwide. In the long run, you will be able to make passive income with this monetization solution.
You may get in touch with one of our search monetization experts and get the advice you need on how to start. Get advice on how to engage more with your audience, get more users, etc. If you start your search feed monetization journey you may expect assistance from your account manager and they will help with changing search settings by your requests and with scaling up.
It is super easy, just register by clicking on the button below, and our Account Managers will get in touch with you. We have a process where we check your product and verify it. After that, we move forward and help you with making $$$$
I think the wait is over. Let’s make money together. Request your feed today.
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