Narrativ's Last-click approach helps publishers make more money

The CEO of Narrativ, Shirely Chen, feels that there is a largely untapped potential for revenue generation in the field of advertising and digital marketing. And that using the links to direct readers to buy products mentioned in an article. It sounds quite simple, but Chen feels that the area is widely untapped.

Of course there are other companies that are working in this area. Companies like Skimlinks and VigLink automate this process. Affiliating links are a part of business models. Publishers get a part of the revenue from the business that they’re sending to the retailers. But here, Narrativ is doing something different.

Narrativ has developed something called as the SmartLink that turns links into advertising unit and different retailers can bid in real-time for each click. Basically, the writers and editors need not do anything different. SmartLink automatically transforms product link that are to be included in the article.

The readers who are reading the article can simply click on the link that they wish to and the bidding and redirecting will take place automatically. The retailer can decide the bidding for different amounts for different users, depending upon the different level of exposure to the brand and products. Since the bidding takes place at the last moment of the click, retailers get to avoid ‘link rot’ when a product link changes. The last click approach is where all the affiliate money goes to whoever drove the final click before purchase.

Although Narrativ is coming out of stealth now, the product has already been in testing with publishers like New York Magazine. The magazine has already seen the value of content clicks increase by 250 percent. Retailers like Dermstore saw its ROI increase by 67% year over year.