Reena Jadhav interviews Adam Boyden, President of Conduit on monetization tips.

Conduit has exploded over the last few years and now supports over 200,000 publishers and more than 60 million active users. But that's not the interesting part. What's fascinating is that they are effectively monetizing their user base and generating significant revenues. I sat down with Adam Boyden, President of Conduit, to elicit his secrets to monetization.  

Conduit's business is based on making it very easy for online publishers to build better connections with their end users. Their partnership with Google lets them leverage the proven search monetization model effectively. While they are generating significant revenues through search monetization, Conduit's model is evolving into a marketplace called "Conduit Open" where their 200,000 publishers can gain syndicated distribution of their content and services through other publishers in the network.

Where's the money?

Search, affiliate marketing and e-commerce continue to be dependable revenue streams.

What's exciting is the emerging mobile based economy where people are paying for services and the emerging model of virtual currency that generates price discrimination while generating community.

Adam cautions around subscription models for long tail or mass market ventures since subscribers have higher expectations that drive higher cost structures. But subscription models can work very well in specific segments of the market depending on the value being delivered.

What should entrepreneurs keep in mind as they build their revenue models?

1.   Always focus on building the largest community for the market segment you are pursuing

2.   Don't reinvent the wheel. Leverage what others have already done successfully. For example, with Conduit we have been fortunate in having a partnership with Google who has already solved the problem of search monetization. This helps avoid the need to build costly infrastructures or pursue unknown endeavors.