It’s been documented for a while now that the publishing industry hasn’t fared well in the past decade. Revenues have steadily fallen industry-wide for the last 10 years. But rather than see a bleak future for the publishing industry, we should look at the opportunities. 

Online publications like magazines or blogs knowingly generate revenue through ads links, affiliate programs, mailing lists, and editorial opportunities. Today we are going to be focusing on how to maximize links and affiliate programs to boost revenue while preserving the integrity of your publication. 

Traditionally publications could link a piece of text or an image to one of their paid partners, this method links to one place and limits insights. What if you could link to many places from a single image? Click through rates would instantly increase and each item tagged in the image would gain impressions, and track individual insights. Publishers will now have the opportunity, thanks to new universal content tagging software called Scopa, to increase the amount of paid affiliate revenue. In this hypothetical example, we will see how GQ.com would be able to increase links by 5x on average. That is 5x more links, which means much higher return. 

Best of all - the links work fluidly with your publication or website’s user experience and avoid the user questioning the integrity of the content they’re viewing or feeling like there are ads being shoved down their throat. No interrupting your content for a quick blurb on a sponsored item. Additionally, all links are automatically connected to Google Analytics to easily track the traffic.

For help illustrating this point let’s look to an article called The 10 Biggest Fits of the Week on GQ Magazine’s website. This type of article is posted weekly, and similar variations of content are used throughout their platform so the opportunities found here are extremely scalable.

Here is one of the photos that are broken down and analyzed by the article. They have one link. One. Under the photo, they write: “Jordan Clarkson. Your next great fleece-wear purchase: a bright white set. (This one's from Shadow Hill.)” There is a major opportunity that is missed here to maximize the analysis of each outfit pictured and get a return for it. The hoodie. The shorts. The shoes. The other shoes. (Even the AirPods if they wanted to!) They are missing out on at least 5 links they could be connecting users to and using towards their advantage.

Subscribers adore finding where those who are featured shop. I should know as I have been following GQ for over 10 years now and seeing where I could get some of the same pieces is always exhilarating.

It’s important to note, that GQ Magazine cares about its reputation and readability. They do not want their subscribers to feel like they are being force-fed ads or being bombarded with spam in any way. That is why keeping UI/UX top of mind would be crucial as a publication expanded their link use. 

The solution?

Here it is.

Scopa is online software that lets publications exponentially increase the number of affiliates or links on any of their content online. With simple and intuitive flow, the user doesn’t see any of the links unless they hover or click on the image to see the breakdown. Keeping the integrity of the publication intact while bringing in substantially higher engagement, opening up opportunities for new content pieces and increasing return.

The SaaS application easily gives the publication the ability to quickly click on the item they want to tag in a photo. All they need to do is enter the link address and title and they are on their way! In addition to the landing page and label, they also have the option to include a price or description.

This new solution easily let blogs or magazines increase the number of links or affiliates they are able to integrate with their content and know well that all will be tracked automatically. Improving the user experience, engagement, and return all in one step.