{"id":209,"date":"2009-05-02T13:52:46","date_gmt":"2009-05-02T17:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.payne.org\/?p=209"},"modified":"2009-05-02T13:52:46","modified_gmt":"2009-05-02T17:52:46","slug":"off-the-beaten-transaction-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/off-the-beaten-transaction-path\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Beaten Transaction Path"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For Internet and mobile applications, the <strong>transaction path<\/strong> is like the West Wing floor plan around the Oval Office \u2013 power is measured by proximity.\u00a0\u00a0 The valuable apps are those closest to influencing a transaction decision.\u00a0 Google is the strongest example:\u00a0 many purchase events start in the search box, making AdWords an extremely important point of influence.<\/p>\n<p>As you move away from the transaction path, value drops off exponentially, as demonstrated by the very low effective CPMs for many apps and properties (esp. when factoring in un-sold inventory).\u00a0\u00a0 This leads to a frustrating realization for many projects:\u00a0 it\u2019s possible to have significant user volume &amp; activity, while generating very little value.\u00a0 For examples, consider the challenges IM apps, Twitter, and even Facebook (to some extent) have had builting profitable businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line:\u00a0 it\u2019s difficult to build valuable stand-alone businesses with ad-centric revenue models, if the app usage is not near the transaction path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Internet and mobile applications, the transaction path is like the West Wing floor plan around the Oval Office \u2013 power is measured by proximity.\u00a0\u00a0 The valuable apps are those closest to influencing a transaction decision.\u00a0 Google is the strongest &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/off-the-beaten-transaction-path\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entrepreneurship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}