Archive for April, 2012
Join us for some DJ madness
Let loose on Friday April 26th at 1pm MDT with the crew here at SkipIt. We’re going to start the weekend off right by spinning some tight jams on the Turntable.fm airwaves. Here’s everything you need to do to join us:
- Get ready to jam out
- Check the clock to make sure it’s 1pm MDT
- Go to this link: http://turntable.fm/4f99b753aaa5cd2add000113
- Start rocking out
Sure, we think it’s pretty cool to work for SkipIt but we’re also confident that we know what it takes to spin records. We hope you’ll join us. When you’re in the @SkipIt Turntable.fm room make sure to give a shout out to let us know you’re a fan of SkipIt.
This weeks music themes:
Songs about SkipIt
Songs that rhyme with SkipIt
Songs about skipping things
Songs from artists that skipped out on us a little too early
Mike Shehan, our CEO, opens up to Sam Thielman on how he felt about announcing SkipIt to our advertiser clients, and the surprising responses he received.
From the article: You all knew it was coming. An enterprising media buyer has come up with a way to let you skip ads for a small fee. Mike Shehan of SpotXchange, a company that sells digital video advertising, is rolling out a new service called SkipIt that will finally allow users to express their distaste for the Geico gecko, the Aflac duck or the advertising campaign of their choice. Read more here.
“Want to Skip Those Veloster Pre-Roll Ads? What’s It Worth to You?”
SpotXchange’s European Managing Director, Andrew Moore, shares his perspective on how SkipIt will positively impact the European video ad market.
From the article: European publishers recognise that delivering a good consumer experience is key to growing audiences and that users will actively abandon sites where there is too much video advertising. This was recognised by Forrester back in 2008 when they showed that 17% of European consumers abandoned sites due to too much advertising and since then, online video advertising across Europe has doubled year-over-year. This is why SpotXchange launched SkipIt. Continue…
Learn more about how SkipIt works for publishers and advertisers:
Read the mention in today’s AdExchanger newsletter about SkipIt – A new service that lets consumers control their online video ad experience by providing the option to skip video ads at their convenience, and helps advertisers eliminate wasteful spending.
From AdExchanger: Following the footsteps of Publicis VivaKi’s The Pool initiative, Google and Solve Media among others, video ad network and exchange SpotXchange is bringing its own brand of skippable video ads. Called “Skip It”- SpotXchange “takes the cake”with the most intuitive brand name and and adds a gaming element that requires user sign up to skip ads. More…
Publishers! Learn how to receive high CPMs with SkipIt by clicking here.
Read Will Richmond’s take on SkipIt. With SkipIt, everyone in the online video advertising ecosystem wins. And for the first time ever, consumers have a choice.
From VideoNuze: The age-old question of whether viewers will pay to skip ads will be put to the test in the online video industry with “SkipIt,” a clever new service SpotXchange is launching today. For participating publishers, a SkipIt “chicklet”appears when a video ad starts playing; if the viewer clicks on it, the ad closes and the content continues. Each ad skipped costs the viewer $.10, which is automatically deducted from their pre-funded account. When an ad is skipped, the advertiser receives a credit from the publisher who is paid a percentage of the viewer’s fee by SkipIt. Continue…
Click here to read the blog entry from our CEO, Mike Shehan, on why we created SkipIt.
We get that most stuff on the Internet is free. For the most part, advertisers have helped keep content online free, and we appreciate that. But lately, even major websites are starting to charge subscriptions for content. Think Hulu, Netflix and the New York Times, as a few examples. But that’s changing, and some of our favorite websites are starting to charge to view content online.
Instead of paying for monthly subscriptions whether you use the website or not, wouldn’t you rather pay only when you use something? Wouldn’t you want the option to skip on lots of sites across the web and only pay a little versus pay a subscription on each of your favorite sites, whether you view the content or not each month? We want SkipIt to be a micropayment of sorts – you only pay WHEN and WHERE you want to. No more, no less. That’s why SkipIt offers the most flexibility.
To put the price in perspective, consider TV. A lot of us pay monthly for our DVRs – digital video recorders – so that we can watch our favorite shows when we want to, and skip ads if we want to. But DVRs cost anywhere from $5-20 per month to rent from our cable company. That’s the equivalent of 50-200 skips with SkipIt. Given that each ad you encounter is 15 or 30 seconds each, you’d be saving a lot of time when you skip.
And what about that morning coffee on the way to work? The national average for a cup of coffee is $1.38. If you were to buy one coffee a day for 30 days for that price, you could skip 414 video ads! That’s a lot of time saved not watching video ads before you get to your content.
But why spend 10 cents per skip, when you can earn tons of free skips? From day one, when you set up an account with SkipIt, you’ll earn free skips when you refer your friends and they sign up and fund their account.
Soon, advertisers will place offers on www.SkipIt.com so you can go there as you wish and earn free skips to recharge your account — for simple things like filling out a survey or downloading coupons or liking your favorite stores on Facebook. Advertisers will pay for those free skips and you’ll be able to skip on – for free.
Do you like free stuff? We do too! We here at SkipIt love giving away free skips. Right now, there are 3 simple ways to earn free skips with SkipIt:
- Sign up –all new users who sign up for SkipIt will receive 5 free skips to get started. You receive 1 free skip when you sign up and 4 more skips after you verify your account via a verification email that we send to you. You do not need to verify your account though if you sign up through Facebook, Twitter or Google. You will be awarded your 5 free skips immediately.
- Fund your account – you are awarded one free skip for every dollar you put in your secure digital wallet starting at $10. So, if you put $15 dollars in your account, you’ll get 15 free skips. If you only add $7 to your account, you won’t get any free skips, though, so consider starting with $10 to get those free skips!
- Refer a friend – once you have a SkipIt account, you can earn lots of free skips by referring your friends and family to SkipIt. Once you sign up for an account we’ll give you a unique URL that you can share with everyone. If they sign up for SkipIt and fund their account, you’ll get 5 free skips. The more people you get to sign up and fund their accounts, the more free skips you’ll get.
Very soon, we’re going to have an offer wall on our website that allows you to download a coupon, take a survey or interact with various brands to earn lots of free skips. You may never have to pay to skip ads again!
But for now, try these ways above. If you have any questions regarding your free skips or account setup, contact help@skipit.com or visit the SkipIt Help Center.
SkipIt…SkipIt good!
Peter Kafka shares his opinion on whether or not our new service, SkipIt, will be a success with consumers. His point is fair and we don’t know how much consumers are willing to pay to skip video ads. But we do know that there’s an industry shift underway and consumers are sending a strong signal that they don’t like being forced to watch video ads. This is proven with abandonment rates averaging between 16-37%. We created SkipIt to help address this problem and to strike a balance between consumers, publishers and advertisers.
From the article: ”If you’re the kind of person who complains about “pre-roll” video ads, now you can put your money where your mouth is. Pay up, and you won’t have to see them. That’s the pitch for SkipIt, a new service from video ad company SpotXchange. The idea: Users set up an account, and when they play videos on sites that use the service, they can pay 10 cents a pop to skip over the ads. Continue…
A big welcome from the SkipIt team! After months and months of hard work, we are happy to announce that SkipIt is officially live.
You may be wondering why SpotXchange, one of the world’s largest global marketplaces for video ad inventory, designed a platform that allows consumers to skip online video ads. Trust us, we get that question a lot!
The truth is, with abandonment rates averaging 16-37%, we decided it was time to design a solution that gives consumers the ability to skip online video ads while still benefiting the advertisers and publishers involved. It’s a win-win situation!
Founder and CEO of SkipIt and SpotXchange, Mike Shehan, describes how he came up with the idea, the market’s initial reaction, and ultimately how SkipIt ended up where it is today
Read Mike’s open letter: “Why is SpotXchange Launching Skipit?”